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STUDIES IN 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


JESSE. R. “KELGEMS, | p,p.,' LL.b., \'s.7.D. 





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STUDIES IN 
THE FORGIVEN 
OF SINS 


BEING THE LECTURES DELIVERED IN MARCH 

AND APRIL, 1925, BEFORE THE FACULTY AND 

STUDENTS OF THE COLLEGE OF THE BIBLE, 
DRAKE UNIVERSITY 


A 
& 
ICAL SENS 


BY 
JESSE R.YKELLEMS 


Day, pels eee i 
EVANGELIST, DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 


With Introduction 
BY 


JESSE CALDWELL: nny ci 
DEAN, DRAKE COLLEGE OF THE BIBLE 





NEw QG@BW york 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


STUDIES IN THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 
aL ar 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 


JESSE M. BADER 


SECRETARY OF EVANGELISM, UNITED 

CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 

COUNSELOR AND FRIEND, THIS BOOK 
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 


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INTRODUCTION 


In the stress and strain of the religious readjust- 
ments of our day there is a real need for a new 
presentation of the doctrines of salvation. To be ef- 
fective, the statement of these doctrines must appeal 
to the thoughtful as reasonable, and to those in search 
of assurance there must be an element of satisfaction. 
They make their strongest appeal when based on sound 
interpretation of the New Testament. The satisfac- 
tions of the past have emphasized various elements as 
the way of peace—union with the Divine—the con- 
sciousness of Sonship. The emotional, intellectual and 
volitional must be taken into account if the presenta- 
tion is well rounded. If this is done, and at the same 
time a sane Biblical support is found, the doctrines will 
meet with response. The now prevalent belief in psy- 
chological unity in contrast to the older faculty psy- 
chology makes harmony of the elements essential to 
peace of mind. The consciousness of dependence will 
rest more comfortably when its beliefs are supported 
by the authority upon which it relies. 

There is also in our day a struggle between the so- 
called religious and the so-called ethical conceptions of 
salvation. In a sense this is the old struggle between 
grace and law. Men feel the need of grace and for- 
giveness; they also need the strength to live. In fact, 
the latter often depends on the former. However, this 


must not conflict in theory with our best ethical ideals. 
Vii 


vill INTRODUCTION 


In a world that thought of the flesh as all bad, salva- 
tion was thought of as a change of nature. ‘The things 
of the world were inherently evil, therefore salvation 
must be the attainment of a transcendent nature, but 
the evidence of this change was usually sought in a 
religion below consciousness. Present-day believers 
are not likely to remain happy in an experience so 
completely mediated by non-rational means. The sense 
of sin, with its deadening hand, must be replaced by 
a living faith that will give courage to growing char- 
acter. An inner experience there may be, but the ex- 
perience itself must be permanent if it is to give an 
abiding assurance. This sense of confidence will be 
strengthened and made more permanent by a formal 
tying up of life with the ideals and purposes of an or- 
ganization made up of those with similar experiences. 
Strength and stability will come from the common 
consciousness. 

Seemingly, at times, salvation has been thought of 
as giving hope for the future alone. The self-con- 
sciousness, due to the revival in belief in the life that 
now is, has led our present day to ignore in some 
measure such a future. Neither the present nor the 
future needs to be depreciated in order to heighten the 
other. What is really wanted is a doctrine that is 
comprehensive enough to be inclusive of this life and 
of that which is to come. An all-embracing redemp- 
tive purpose must challenge our finest aspirations of 
hope, now and for eternity. 

Finally, our conception of salvation will depend in 
very large measure upon our conception of sin. Ina 
erowing world of contacts sin itself becomes more 


INTRODUCTION 1X 


complex. A mere struggle between the flesh and the 
spirit may have been conceived in the past as alto- 
gether individual, but the social consciousness of our 
day has a growing sense of the solidarity of the race. 
The old Adam is none the less real, and human nature 
must still be changed, but the change of nature is 
vastly larger than the individual. It is a matter of 
the redemption of the race as well. Salvation is no 
less an individual affair, but it is vastly more than 
that, it is a social affair of universal scope. Social 
righteousness is demanded that shall give justice to 
weak and strong, opportunities for realization in har- 
mony with the given possibilities. Men want to live 
in a world of love instead of hate. These ideals of 
realization are not merely for self, but they are for a 
world environment that is not the creature of some 
demiurge but the very Kingdom of God. 

Dr. Kellems has given us, in his “Studies in the 
Forgiveness of Sins,’ a well-balanced discussion of 
this important problem. It is sanely Biblical, but 
shows familiarity with the modern viewpoint. The 
Studies are true to the position of the religious people 
with whom the author is identified—a people whose 
passion is Christian Unity and which they believe is 
best promoted by an effort to return to the New Tes- 
tament ideals, doctrines and practices. 


JessE C. CALDWELL. 


College of the Bible, 
Drake University, 
Des Moines, Iowa. 


March 29, 1926. 


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PREFACE 


The following work, which does not in any mariner 
claim to be an exhaustive study of that inexhaustive 
subject, “The Forgiveness of Sins,’ has been written 
from the point of view of the soul winner. What mes- 
sage should one know if he would win men to Christ? 
This should be the first question in the mind of the 
reverent student of the Word of God. Is there a 
heart-theme around which all the rest of the revelation 
lies? To the author of this work there is. That theme 
is the forgiveness of sins through Christ. 

To one acquainted with the tendencies of modern 
thought, the necessity of a recall to the foundational 
things in the Christian Revelation is apparent. On 
one hand, there are those whose constant attenuation 
of the Gospel message, and the steady reduction of 
the content of the Christian blessings which the Gospel 
can promise, tends to make the Good News evaporate 
into thin air. On the other hand, there are those who 
are insisting upon non-essential things, as matters of 
faith, so vital that without them there can be no sal- 
vation at all. Between these two, there lies a middle 
road, one which offers a safe and sure path. There is, 
in the very center of the whole Christian scheme, the 
wonderful promise that God, because He loves us, 
sinners though we be, will grant us free and full for- 
giveness through His holy Son Jesus. Without this 


x1 


Xl PREFACE 


there could be no Christianity. It is surely the very 
heart and center of the Gospel as it is revealed in the 
New Testament. 

Any study of this fascinating subject must have 
respect to the manifest divisions of it. There are really 
just two parts to it,—that which God has done for us, 
and the human response through faith. No matter 
from what angle we may view the subject, these two 
divisions stand forth clearly. And this has been the 
manner in which the present work considers the whole 
scheme of divine forgiveness. 

There are places in the discussion in which the usual 
moderation of the scholar is thrown aside. In none of 
these, few as they are, has the author felt that he has 
exceeded the bounds of critical caution. It has been 
his aim to set forth fairly the great theme as it en- 
grosses the minds of the Apostolic Writers, feeling 
that in doing so, he is presenting that message which 
must lie at the foundation of the thinking of every 
man who would bring others to a saving knowledge of 
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. 

Nothing is needed by our own age so much as a 
conscience concerning sin, and a willingness to know 
God’s method of dealing with it. Would not a re- 
study of the whole question, in the light of the ac- 
knowledged fact that, with all our scientific attainments, 
we are more murderous, more adulterous, more covet- 
ous, than ever before, yield blessed results? To the 
author this is apparent. We must know this message 
or have no Gospel, for that God, through Christ, for- 
gives our sins and makes possible our sanctification is 
the Gospel of Christ. 


PREFACE xill 


The author wishes to express his thanks to those who 
have made possible the appearance of the book in its 
present form. To Principal A. R. Main, M.A., of 
the College of the Bible, Glen Iris, Melbourne, 
Australia, is due his gratitude for the suggestion out 
of which the work grew, in his invitation to write a 
series of articles for the Australian Christian and for 
his kind permission to use these articles as one chap- 
ter. The faculty of the College of the Bible of Drake 
University, Des Moines, Iowa, has also laid the author 
under a debt in the opportunity which their invita- 
tion to deliver a series of lectures afforded to present 
the great subject of forgiveness in that manner. These 
lectures were delivered while the author was happily 
engaged in an evangelistic campaign with Dr. Charles 
S. Medbury and Dr. Sam Mathison of the University 
Church of Christ, Des Moines, Iowa, and the Very 
Reverend W. P. Paterson, D.D., Dean of the Faculty 
of Divinity of the University of Edinburgh, admired 
teacher and friend for numerots kindly suggestions in 
regard to the work. He wishes also to thank his 
brother-in-law, Mr. George H. Ramsay, B.A., pastor 
of the First Christian Church, Evansville, Indiana, for 
his helpfulness in preparing the manuscript for publica- 
tion. 

Jesse R. KELLEMs. 

Eugene, Oregon, 

September 22nd, 1925. 


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CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION BY DEANE JESSE CALDWELL, D.D., 


LED, 
PREFACE 


1. The relation of forgiveness to evangelism 

2. The necessity for a study of the subject, 
in the light of the tendencies in modern 
Christian thinking 


CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF FORGIVE- 
NESS 


1. The centrality of forgiveness in the di- 
vine scheme of things 


TI. THe NATURE OF FORGIVENESS IN THE OLD 
TESTAMENT 


1. Pardon 

2. Blotting out, or covering 0 over, one’s sins 

ae Remembering of sinsnomore. . 

4. The forgiveness of Jehovah is a personal 
forgiveness. This is the highest Pee 
of Old Testament teaching 


II. THe NATuRE OF FORGIVENESS IN THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 


1. In the teaching ee poe He nowhere 
directly discusses it 

(a) The Parable of the Prodigal Son 

(b) The two other parables in Luke 

the fifteenth chapter. Idea of 

seeking love is here expressed . 

(c) The teaching in the Sermon on 
Mount. 

(d) The sees of the Great Debtor 


PAGE 
Vil 
Xi 


XI 


X11 


XV CONTENTS 


(5) The forgiveness of the Father is 
mediated through Jesus 
(a) The death of Jesus as a 
ransom for many 
(b) The Supper and its rela- 
tion to the blood of Christ 
(c) The objection to the teach- 
ing that forgiveness is medi- 
ated through Christ . 
(6) Summary of Jesus’ teaching 
2. The Apostolic conception of forgiveness 
(1) In the earliest Apostolic preaching 
A. In line with beach of 
esus.. ay: 
(2) In the Epistles of Paul . 
(a) Return to forensic lan- 
guage . 2 ie 
(b) Steven’s view. Why he 
used this language . 
(c) Why religious terminology 
must be analogical 
(d) Paul in line with the teach- 
ing of Jesus 
(e) The two thought forms un- 
der which he defines for- 
giveness 
({) Dying to sin and rising to 
holiness 
3. Summary of Biblical definition of the 
state of forgiveness . eR ys 3 


III. Forctveness As A CHANGE OF STATE 
1. Alexander Campbell’s six propositions . 
2. Never a change of soul, but of religious 
condition Pa Weta ee or ves kok 


IV. Tue WHote Stupy ILLUSTRATES THE USE OF 
ANALOGICAL TERMS ; 
I. How the student must Ne aoe Pies 


PAGE 
37 
38 
40 
4I 
44 
44 
44 


46 
40 


46 
47 
48 


49 


50 
51 
52 
53 
53 
53 


oh 
37 


CONTENTS 


V. THe RELATION BETWEEN Ue One gay AND 
SANCTIFICATION eral 


t. A battleground of ona 


2. A change of state which finally results in 
a change of character 


3. The regenerating power of forgiveness . 


CHAPTER II: THE GROUND OF FORGIVE- 
NESS 


Throughout the Old and New Testaments it is 
the love of God. 


I. THe Wuote As To THE PLACE OF Oi IN 
Gop’s FORGIVENESS 
1. The church has never edi any tha 
doubts about this place 
(1) Only in the last century hae he 
question come forward with in- 
sistence 
2. The place of Jesus in tives ee Paul . 
3. The so-called Gospel of Paul is the Gos- 
pel of the New Testament 5 
4. Objections to the so-called Gospel of 
Paul S 
(a) Assumes a ey in ‘the New Tee! 
tament : 
(b) It contradicts the ‘ooenite A 
Jesus in the parable of the Prodi- 
By eal’ Son 
(c) It is impossible cap cree in eines 
can have eternal significance 
(d) The position of Jesus is fictitious. 
It was invented by the disciples . 


XVli 


PAGE 


he 
59 


62 
64 


66 


XVlil CONTENTS 


5. Limitations of the so-called Gospel of 
Jesus 
(1) It sweeps away tie faith a con- 
victions of the Apostolic Church 
(2) The teaching that forgiveness 
comes through Jesus does not 
contradict the parable of the 
Prodigal Son . 
3) The unity of the New Tecra 
is not fictitious 
(4) The only manner in which retin 
revelation could be intelligible to 
us would be through. historical 
manifestation . 


(a) This is only the old ir 
tempt to thrust Jesus out 
of the Christian religion . 

(b) The theory, that because 
Christianity is historical it 
cannot be final, is bland as- 
sumption ‘ 

(c) It is based upon a false 
view of history as such 

(d) Reality is not frozen or 
fixed, but Peni or ki- 
Yel kl ook a 

(5) The theory sweeps away the eae 
consciousness of Jesus . 


(6) This view of the Gospel cuts its 
moral nerve. It is not one which 
will win men to Christ . 


(7) The theory leaves no place for 
the seeking love of God 


CHAPTER III: THE APPROPRIATION OF 
FORGIVENESS 


This is a study of the human response to what 
God has done in Christ 


PAGE 


IOI 


Io! 


CONTENTS 


I. Tue NEw TESTAMENT TEACHING. FORGIVE- 
NEss Is BY FAITH 
1. The teaching of Bat 
2. The Petrine doctrine . 
3. Faith and righteousness 


II. Tue Nature oF APPROPRIATING FAITH 
I. Considered negatively 
(a) It is not mere belief . 
(a) Difference between belief 


and faith . 
(b) Belief, the beginning of 
faith 


(b) It is not faith in the Bible . 
(a) In a Person and not in a 
Book . 
(b) ae Book reveals the Per- 


SO 
(c) It is vot a faith in that which 
makes parties or divisions in the 
church 
(a) Not in creeds or isms 
(b) But in that which is com- 
mon to all Christians 
(d) It is not a faith to which salva- 
tion is attached as an arbitrary 
thing 
(a) It is the only right thing 
under the moral conditions 
(e) It is not an act of belief by which 
Wwe merit forgiveness . 
(a) It would thus be itself a 
work . 
(b) We could not be saved by 
the intellectual act of be- 
lieving . 
2. Appropriating faith considered ‘positively 
(a) It is faith in Christ as a Person . 
(b) It begins with belief of the facts 
of the Gospel . 


X1x 
PAGE 


102 


102 
104 
105 


106 
107 
107 
108 


108 
10g 


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II! 


II! 


EY2 
113 
114 
114 
TI4 
115 


115 


117 


xx CONTENTS 


(a) These facts made known to 
us through testimony ‘ 
(b) Faith is not belief in the 
facts isolated from the 
Gospel aa of 
them 1. 
(c) This type of faith is his- 
toric faith } 
(c) Appropriating faith is manifest 
in genuine repentance toward God 
(a). Faith Oa ae in repent- 
ance / is 
(b) Relation shown in 1 meaning 
of original terms : 
(d) Faith is also ‘objectified i in definite 
acts of obedience... 
(a) The good confession one 
of these acts : 
(b) Baptism is another 
(c) The error of sharply dis- 
tinguishing between steps 
in the plan of salvation 
(e) Faith defined in summary . 
(a) An attitude of the soul to 
God 
(b) Its center is love 
(c) It is manifest as trust 


III. How Is Farirn Propucep IN THE HEarT? 
1. Not something we take up for ourselves 
2. In what sense a gift of God 
3. It is evoked by Christianity 
(1) Through nature 
(2) Through the New Testament 
Go) Throush Christian personalities . 


CHAPTER IV: BAPTISM AND THE FOR- 
GIVENESS OF SINS : 
The modern man and baptism 
- J. In toe New TESTAMENT Baptism Is AL- 
WAYS CONNECTED WITH THE REMISSION OF 
SINS 


PAGE 


117 


118 
119 
121 
121 
122 
123 


123 
124 


126 
127 


127 
128 
129 


130 
130 
131 
133 
133 
134 
136 


137 
137 


139 


CONTENTS xxi 


1. Modern scholars on the subject . . 140 
2. The sacramentarianism of Paul . . I41 
(1) How some would ewe this 

away fo Ida 
3. This is not only a | Pauline attitude. It is 
characteristic of the whole New Testa- 
ment. A ; ! SNe TAG 


II. A CONSTRUCTIVE STATEMENT OF THE Doc- 
TRINE OF BAPTISM AND THE REMISSION OF 


BREN SRR EY) suet 0c (2) 6 Poet) BM car ew ME aR RN) ooh ht Lia 
1. Baptism is an initiatory act based upon 

the/authoritys Of rfestong aah we aleea eos 

ae vit is A) SYmpOliC arty wo ee BAe od I Le AL Bae 

[eiis) acmonumerntal act (20 1. 156 


3. 
4. It is a confessional act to which i is at- 
tached the assurance of the forgiveness 


OP singe its PHU AI ET ees 
Itisa translational Act lnsia 161 

(a) Connected with atonement as ef- 
fect is with cause . IOI 


(b) Relation between the ‘blood of 
Christ and the remission of sins . 164 
(c)sBaptisnr assdirealvact/) 000 yaw es 
A. The meaning of remission. 167 

(d) Baptism as the sacrament of the 
new birth 4 ; See Me aL 


III. RELATION oF INFANT BAPTISM TO THE SUB- 


JECT OF FORGIVENESS .. ; OS Gas 
1. If conclusions are AB ree is no 
Place top antant baptisni en ae lee 7G 
ITV. CONCLUSIONS FROM THE STUDY , SET OO 


1. Baptism for modern man will be of caters 
est only as he eee its New Testament 
meaning : 180 
2. All our divisions on the question must be 
settled in the light of its meaning . . 180 


XXIl CONTENTS 


CHAPTER Vs) THE (LORD SsSUPPER (Ag) 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS . 


1. Is the Supper related to forgiveness ? 
2. It is evident that it is so related, because 
it is connected with the death of Christ . 


I. Toe New TESTAMENT TEACHING REGARDING 
THE Lorp’s SUPPER . 
I, Concerning its institution . 
(1) Is it a sacrifice? 
(2) In what sense a sacrifice 
(3) A study of Christ’s action in insti- 
tuting it . : ‘ , : 


II. THe GREAT THEORIES OF THE SUPPER . 
The Roman Catholic . 

The Lutheran theory 

The theory of Zwingli 

The Socinian theory . 

The Calvinistic theory 


SG ae Bie, 


III. A ConstrucTiIvE STATEMENT OF THE NEw 
TESTAMENT TEACHING CONCERNING THE 
Lorp’s SUPPER : 

I. The time of its MESES VA is ipmifitate 
2. The meaning of the Supper as related to 
our constant forgiveness ‘ ; 

(a) It isa communion 

(b) It is a time of heart examination 

(c) Itisa Bias aue non of the atone- 
ment 

(d) It is a bond of union among the 
Christians 

(e) It is a time of cleansing for the 

Christian 

(f) It is a pledge of the return of 
Christ ABT 

(g) It is a memorial 


CONTENTS XXill 


PAGE 


CONCLUSIONS , : : : ; ; Saoy 
1. The Supper is not only a memorial, it 

is sacramental . : . ie oe | 

2. What our attitude figiae te i ‘ 222 


3. The time of its observance is important 223 
4. Who has the right to partake?. . . 224 





STUDIES IN 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 





CHAPPER «I 
THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 


It must be evident to every student of divine things 
that the subject of forgiveness is central in the study 
of God’s gracious dealings with men. Without an 
understanding of it, there is no understanding of the 
various other relations which exist between God and 
man. Dr. Denney has well said, “There is in truth 
only one religious problem in the world—the existence 
of sin—and one religious solution of it—the Atone- 
ment, in which the love of God bears the sin, taking it, 
in all its terrible reality for us, upon Himself. And 
nothing can be central or foundational, either in Chris- 
tian preaching or in Christian thinking, which is not 
in direct and immediate relation to this problem and 
its solution.” * How to be forgiven? This is the ques- 
tion which will come with great force to every man 
who has his conscience stirred concerning sin. And 
no matter how hardened he may be, there must come 
a time in which this conscience-stirring will take place. 
What is this forgiveness? How far does it go? Is it 
but tolerance on the part of the offended? Is it only 
that He will remit the punishment which we so richly 
deserve? Or, is there more? Does it go so far as 
to mean a restoration to that place which we occupied 
before the fall? To a consideration of these questions, 


1“The Death of Christ,” Denney, p. 237. 
27 


28 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


with special emphasis upon the last one, will we devote 
ourselves in this first study. 


I. THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS IN THE OLD 
TESTAMENT 


To discover the basis of the teaching of Jesus and 
the Apostles on the subject of forgiveness of sins, we 
must go to the Old Testament. In the teaching of the 
Prophets, especially, do we find the foundational ideas 
which were developed with such clarity in the new dis- 
pensation. It is notable that the language in which the 
New Testament ideas of forgiveness are cast was de- 
veloped in the prophetic teaching. A brief study of 
these basic ideas as they are revealed in the Old Testa- 
ment will best prepare for a more exhaustive study of 
the nature of forgiveness, as it is set forth in the life 
and teaching of our Lord and illustrated in the pro- 
gressive thinking of the Apostles. 

1, Forgiveness is frequently considered under the 
somewhat official word “pardon.” 

Forgiveness and pardon are essentially the same 
thing, although there can be no doubt that forgive- 
ness is a deeper, in that it is a more personal, word. 
The great statement in Isaiah, so familiar to all Chris- 
tians, speaks of the willingness of Jehovah to receive 
the sinner and to pardon his sins. “Let the wicked for- 
sake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: 
and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have 
mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will 
abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7). Here the willingness 
of Jehovah to pardon the penitent is emphasized in 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 29 


the words, “He will abundantly. pardon.” There will 
be in His heart and mind no reservations; it will be 
pardon to the full. The terms upon which this pardon 
is to be so fully and freely granted are simply stated 
that all may understand. The wicked must forsake his 
wicked way, and he must return to Jehovah. The un- 
righteous man, leaving his unrighteous thoughts, must 
turn his mind and heart to Jehovah. It is almost a 
forensic term, the word pardon, but nevertheless the 
picture is a clear one; it is the picture of God waiting 
for the sinner, anxious to forgive. This willingness of 
Jehovah to pardon is further and even more directly 
affirmed by Nehemiah: “But thou art a God ready to 
pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and 
abundant in lovingkindness’” (Neh. 9:17). Here, 
again, the semi-judicial word is used, but it is to be 
observed that it more nearly approaches the deeper 
personal nature of Jehovah, His gracious and merciful 
character, the fact that He is slow to anger and 
abundant in lovingkindness. There could be no more 
noble foundation for the teaching of our Lord than 
this developed in the experience of Israel and expressed 
so clearly in the teachings of the Prophets. 

2. Forgiveness is also spoken of as the “blotting out | 
of sins.” “TI, even I, am he that blotteth out thy trans- | 
gressions, for mine own sake; and I will not remem- 
ber thy sins’ (Isa. 43:25). In the next chapter, 
the same Prophet declares, “‘I have blotted out, as a 
thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud, thy 
sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee’’ (Isa. 
44:22). Here, without a doubt, the idea of the for- 
giveness which Jehovah so abundantly offers to the 


30 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


returning sinner is a “covering.” His own mercy 
covers what has been amiss. By the covering, sin is 
hidden from His sight. It does not mean that the 
sin has not been committed; it has, and nothing can 
erase this as a fact, but it no longer stands between 
the sinner and God. It is “covered over,” that Jehovah 
may no longer see it. 

3. Growing out of this idea of a covering is another 
expression which occurs frequently as an Old Testa- 
ment description of the nature of forgiveness, that of 
remembering our sins no more. Ina statement already 
quoted (Isa. 43:25), Jehovah says, “I will not re- 
member thy sins.”’ Jeremiah tells of the new covenant 
which is to come, the chief glory of which is to be 
that Jehovah, in relation to sinners who turn to Him, 
“will forgive their iniquity, and their sin” will He 
“remember no more” (Jer. 31:34). There are other 
terms explaining this same idea of remembering sins no 
more, as the central meaning of forgiveness, as con- 
ceived in the prophetic teachings. Isaiah rejoices in this 
thought when he says, “Thou hast cast all my sins be- 
hind my back” (Isa. 38:17). Micah, in a glorious 
peroration, rejoices also in the same beautiful thought, 
“Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, 
and passeth over the transgressions of the remnant of 
his heritage? he that retaineth not his anger forever, be- 
cause he delighteth in lovingkindness. He will again 
have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities 
under foot; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the 
depth of the sea” (Micah 7: 18, 19). How rich are the 
expressions here employed to emphasize the truth that 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS dl 


Jehovah really forgives. This is no longer official 
language; it is definitely personal now. Jehovah, be- 
cause He delights in lovingkindness, and because He 
has compassion upon the sinner, “pardoneth iniquity,” 
passeth over transgression, treads iniquity under foot, 
and casts sins into the depths of the sea. There is no 
more beautiful thought in all the Old Testament than 
that Jehovah’s forgiveness is a personal forgiveness. 
It needs to be enriched by the teaching of Jesus, that 
it is personal because it is the forgiveness of a loving 
Father. But no more lofty heights are reached in all 
the old dispensation than this, that when Jehovah for- 
gives, He forgets. This is always the glaring weak- 
ness of our human forgiveness; we say we forgive, but 
we cannot forget. It is a question not hard to answer; 
is there really any forgiveness at all, if it does not 
mean to forget? While the fact that sin has been 
committed can never be erased, yet, we can, if we 
truly forgive, treat the sinner as though he had never 
committed it. This is the meaning of forgiveness as 
the Prophets conceived it. Jehovah forgets, He re- 
members our sins no more. He treats the penitent one 
as though he had never been a sinner. This, as we 
will discover, is the real foundation of the teaching 
of Jesus, that Jehovah restores the sinner to the posi- 
tion he occupied before he offended. When Jehovah 
forgives, sin is cast forever behind His back; in the 
oblivion of the sea it is buried to rise no more; it will 
never come back to separate between the forgiven and 


God. 


382 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


II THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS IN THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 


1. The conception in the teaching of Jesus. 

Jesus, nowhere, directly discusses the subject of for- 
giveness. While it frequently has a place in His con- 
sideration of other subjects, it is never exhaustively 
treated. It is, so to speak, imbedded in His teaching, 
and He deals with it rather by way of illustration than 
by dogmatic statement. A study of the word “forgive” 
would not necessarily give us a correct idea of just 
what was in His mind when He tells us that God for- 
gives, or that the Son of Man hath power on earth to 
forgive sins. This word itself is a figurative word, 
and figurative words cannot be accepted as precisely de- 
fining the basic idea. Professor Stevens is right when 
he says, “Our Lord seems to have spoken of God’s 
forgiveness of men rather incidentally and by allu- 
sion.” ? But by His allusions we can form a clear 
idea of what was in His mind when He tells us that 
God does forgive. 

(1) In the familiar and well loved parable of the 
prodigal son, sometimes better called the parable of 
the loving Father, the great outlines of the Saviour’s 
own teaching on this heart theme of the Gospel appear 
in unmistakable form. The son has wandered away. 
It is not a servant who leaves the house, but the son 
and heir, flesh and bone of the father’s flesh and bone, 
a son of his love. Caring not for the pain which his 
unfaithfulness and prodigality causes to the father’s 
heart, he throws away his substance in riotous living. 


2“The Christian Doctrine of Salvation,’ Stevens, p. 343. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 33 


‘As low as he can go, he falls. As far away from the 
ideals and protection of the father as it is possible for 
him to be, he wanders. But never in all this does he 
once fall from the love of the father. The father loves 
him with all the unreasoning, illogical love of a father 
for ason. In this parable there is no evidence of the 
father going after the lost boy. He seems to let him 
fight out his battle alone. There is no hint that a 
restraining word is spoken, or ought done, to bring 
him back to the protection of the paternal roof. But 
the wondrous thought which sparkles upon this parable 
like a dazzling gem on the robe of a queen, is that of 
the anxious, eager waiting of the father for the son’s 
return. He feels that the lost boy will come back again. 
He cannot forever remain in the darkness and ruin of 
the awful life which he has chosen. The degradation 
which is his as a consequence of his prodigality will 
some day bring him “back to himself” and he will re- 
turn to the father. And so it is that the father waits, 
and longingly looks into the distance, for his coming. 
One glad day he sees him as he wearily plods over the 
hill toward home. _He “sees him afar off.” What 
eager waiting for the first sign of penitence! In the 
homeward walk he sees it, and then follows the rap- 
turous welcome. He falls on his neck and kisses him; 
he robes him and places a ring on his finger; he orders 
a feast of welcome for this one “who was lost and is 
found,” for this one ‘who was dead’’ and is alive, and 
is to be treated as one who is alive. He does not re- 
ceive him as a servant, though in the depths of his true 
penitence the son would have it so, he is a son and as 
a son he is received. The joy of the reception, the fact 


384 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


that it is a father’s reception of a son who has wandered 
away, back into the filial relationship,—such concep- 
tions as these, though builded upon the prophetic teach- 
ing, are a decided advance beyond that teaching. There 
is in such an idea as this no hint of the law court; it 
is a personal forgiveness, a restoration of a son from 
an unfilial life to the protection and care of his home 
with his loving father. God forgives as a father; this 
is the glory and wonder of the teaching of our Lord. 

There is an idea in the two other parables in the 
fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel which, as we have 
already noted, does not appear in the parable of the 
Lost Son. ‘The whole chapter is devoted to a de- 
fense of His action in receiving sinners and dining 
with them, The three powerful parables are illustra- 
tions of God’s interest in sinners, and his paternal con- 
cern over them in their wanderings from Him. In the 
parable of the lost sheep, he adds to the idea that the 
Father is anxiously awaiting the penitence of His chil- 
dren, that He may forgive, the further thought that 
the Father Himself goes after them to bring them back 
to His home. The shepherd, out on the mountains wild 
and bare, anxiously hunting the one sheep that has 
gone astray and the woman diligently sweeping the 
whole house that she may recover the lost coin are 
illustrations of the Father’s seeking love. He is not 
passive; He 1s active in bringing about penitence and 
reconciliation. We shall advert to this again; it is suf- 
ficient here to note it as a distinct part of our Lord’s 
teaching. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, there are other allu- 
sions to forgiveness which help us to know what was 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 35 


in the mind of Christ on this ever-important theme. If 
we are to be forgiven by the Father, we must forgive 
as our Father forgives. Even our prayer for forgive- 
ness must be preceded by a forgiveness of those who 
have sinned against us. It is thus taught in the prayer 
which was to be a model for His disciples: “Forgive — 
us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” 
(Matt. 6:12). Our readiness to forgive in advance, 
as it were, to grant fully and freely such forgiveness, 
even before it is asked, is one of the conditions of our 
forgiveness by the Father. “For if ye forgive men 
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive 
you. Butif ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither 
will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.” 
The so-called “hard saying” in the same sermon gives 
us the basis upon which such free and full forgive- 
ness is founded. “Love your enemies, and pray for 
them that persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). God has 
loved us, even while we were His enemies, while we 
wandered in lust and shame, far from His home. As 
in the parable the father anxiously waited for the 
first sign of a penitent spirit, so our heavenly Father 
even in advance forgives us when we show the first 
signs of turning. It is not indicated that there is any 
forgiveness apart from a penitent turning to God, on 
the part of the sinner, but our Lord does intend us 
to understand by such words that the attitude of the 
Father is one of eager waiting to richly bestow upon us, 
when we leave the by-paths of sin, the bounteous for- 
giveness of His love. 

There is yet one other idea as to the nature of the 
divine forgiveness, developed in the beautiful parable 


36 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


of the Great Debtor (Matt. 18: 21-35). The thought, 
as in that of the disciples’ prayer, is still concerning our 
own forgiveness of those who sin against us. It is still 
the teaching that we must forgive, as God forgives us. 
One servant owed his Lord ten thousand talents,—an 
impossible sum. Never could he pay it. Even though 
all his family be sold as slaves, he could not pay the 
tithe of the vast amount which he owes. Then the king, 
moved with compassion, freely and fully forgives the 
debt. But the servant, instead of having his own heart 
touched by this wondrous magnanimity on the part 
of his Lord, went out, and taking by the throat a fel- 
low-servant who owed him a paltry sum, demanded 
the immediate payment of the debt. God has for- 
given us a load of debt which it would have been for- 
ever utterly impossible for us to pay. It was so heavy 
that under it we were doomed. But He forgave it ail. 
Since God, our Father, has done so much for us, we 
should be willing and happy to freely forgive the little 
things which men have done against us. Thus it is that 
the Master, in answer to Peter’s question, “Lord, how 
often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive 
him?’, answers, “I say not unto thee, Until seven 
times; but Until seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:21, 
22). The cruel and revengeful can find no forgiveness 
at the Father’s hands. They are not forgivable as long 
as this is their spirit. He who would be forgiven of 
the awful load of sins which he carries must possess 
the spirit of the Father, and forgive in the spirit of 
the Father, freely, fully, with unending liberality. 
After describing the deserved punishment of the servant 
to whom so much had been forgiven, and yet in whose 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 7 


heart there was found no forgiveness for his friend, the 
Master says, “So shall also my heavenly Father do 
unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother, from 
your hearts” (Matt. 18:35). , 

The teaching of Jesus on the subject of divine for- 
giveness would be incomplete if we did not note that 
which in it is most important of all: the forgiveness 
from the Father is mediated to man through Him- 
self. Our very conception of a loving heavenly Fa- 
ther, comes through Him, for “No man hath seen 
God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 
1:18). It is clearly a part of our Lord’s conception 
that in His life and death He does something which 
makes it possible for man to enjoy the forgiveness of 
his sins. There is a hint at this attitude in the words, 
“T am the way, the truth, the life: no man cometh unto 
the Father but by me’ (John 14:6). He has been 
teaching that the Father freely forgives; He loves the 
sinner and would have him return with contrite heart 
to the paternal home. But here He frankly states that 
the only way to that home is by Him. The key to this 
undeniable teaching is to be found in the truth that 
man alone does not know the Father and could not, 
therefore, come to Him. This stands forth in the 
words of Jesus, “All things have been delivered to me 
of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the 
Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the 
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal 
him” (Matt. 11:27). 

There are two mighty statements of Jesus, which 
criticism has been unable to whittle away, in which our 


38 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Master definitely teaches that the divine forgiveness 
is indissolubly connected with His death. Because of 
something definitely accomplished by His death, some- 
thing which could never have been accomplished un- 
less He had died, the divine forgiveness is extended 
to the penitent sinner. The first one is the famous 
statement that He had come “‘not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister, and_to give his life a ransom for 
many” (Mark 10:45). We shall advert to these 
passages and consider them more exhaustively, later; 
it is sufficient here to note that they de form a part of 
the teaching of Jesus upon the whole question, and 
that it is their manifest meaning that forgiveness is 
in some manner dependent upon His own death. 
When we begin to talk of the death of Christ as a 
ransom for the lives of many, we may feel that we are 
in waters beyond our depth, we may feel that we are 
entering into a realm where we are not at all at home, 
but that such a realm is entered if we follow the teach- 
ing of the Master, there can be no denying. Dr. Den- 
ney has found the meaning of this puzzling passage 
when he connects it with what Jesus had said to His 
disciples about one’s losing his life or saving it (Mark 
8:34 ff.). There is here a circle of ideas in which 
the statement about a ransom for many finds contact. 
“If any man would come after me, let him deny him- 
self, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoso- 
ever will save his life, shall lose it, but whosoever shall 
lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, shall find 
it. For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole 
world and forfeit his life. For what should a man 
give in exchange for his life?” It is apparent from 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 39 


this passage that Jesus believes there are conditions 
under which a man may forfeit or lose his life; that 
he may forfeit it to such an extent that it would be 
impossible for him, out of any resources which may 
be his, to buy it back again. This thing which it 
would be forever impossible for a man to do for him- 
self or even for his brother, because of limited re- 
sources, the Son of Man did when He “gave his life 
as a ransom for many.” We have neither time nor 
inclination to plunge into an impossible consideration 
of the question as to whom such a ransom would be 
paid. This we can never solve, neither does it log- 
ically concern us just now. It is enough to note that 
it is a part of the teaching of Jesus on the question 
of sin and its forgiveness. In a word, the forgive- 
ness which God will give is conditioned upon the 
ransom which Jesus paid in giving His life. It is 
sufficient for us to “recognize the fact that the Lord 
speaks of the surrender of His life in this way. A 
ransom is not wanted at all except where a life has been 
forfeited, and the meaning of the sentence, unambigu- 
ously, is that the forfeited lives of many are liberated 
by the surrender of Christ’s life, and that to surrender 
His life to do them this incalculable service was the 
very soul of His calling. If we find the same thought 
in Paul, we shall not say that the Evangelist has 
Paulinized, but that Paul has sat at the feet of Jesus. 
And if we feel that such a thought carries us suddenly 
out of our depth,—that as the words fall on our minds, 
we seem to hear the plunge of the lead into fathomless 
waters,—we shall not, for that, imagine that we have 
lost our way. By these things men live, and wholly 


40 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


therein is the life of our spirit. We cast ourselves on 
them because they outgo us; in their very immensity 
we are assured that God is in them.” * 

There is but one connection in which we may under 
stand the reference in the Supper to our Lord’s blood 
as the “blood of the covenant,” that in which the prom- 
ise of a new covenant is made (Jer. 31:34). The 
very heart and foundation of this new covenant is to be 
the forgiveness of sins. “Behold, the days come, saith 
Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the 
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not ac- 
cording to the covenant that I made with their fathers 
in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them 
out of the land of Egypt.” In a sense, it is to be a 
glorious renewal of the gracious covenant of former 
days, but it is to be unlike the old one. It is to be a 
covenant of the heart, one internal rather than ex- 
ternal, and its chief glory is to be “that they shall all 
know me from the least unto the greatest of them, for 
I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will re- 
member no more.” There can be no doubt but that 
Jesus had this prophecy in mind when He so solemnly 
said, “This is my blood of the covenant.” It is placed 
beyond a possibility of successful contradiction, if we 
adopt the reading of many of the most ancient manu- 
scripts, “This is my blood of the new (xauvd¢) 
covenant.” This new covenant which Jehovah had 
promised through the Prophet of old He is estab- 
lishing, and by the sacrifice of His own life. All to 
whom its fundamental blessing of the forgiveness of 
sins shall come are forever to be indebted to Him, 

3“The Death of Christ,’ Denney, pp. 32, 33. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 41 


because in His blood poured out, in His body broken 
upon the tree, He has made for it the foundation 
eternal, “It is a word which gathers up into it the 
whole promise of prophecy and the whole testimony 
of the Apostles; it is the focus of revelation in which 
the Old Testament and the New are one. The power 
that is in it is the power of the passion in which the 
Lamb of God bears the sin of the world. It is no mis- 
apprehension, therefore, but a true rendering of the 
mind of Christ, when Matthew calls the covenant 
‘new,’ and defines the shedding of blood by the refer- 
ence to the remission of sins.’’ ¢ 

There is a school which makes vociferous and con- 
sistent objection to this teaching of our Lord, that 
forgiveness from the Father is in some manner de- 
pendent upon what He did in His death upon the 
cross. In a word, the objection states that any such 
teaching directly contradicts all that He has elsewhere 
taught on the same subject. The parable of the Lost 
Boy, in which the father forgives out of pure love, in 
which He forgives unconditionally, fully, and freely, is 
surely made void by such a position. It is thus a mis- 
representation of the character of God as a loving 
heavenly Father and, therefore, destroys the whole 
Gospel. 

On the face of it, this objection seems to be a valid 
one. When we probe it deeper, however, the fallacy of 
it readily appears. It is to be observed that in our 
present position the death of Christ is not considered 
as an isolated event. It is not this sublime event alone 
through which forgiveness is mediated to the sinner. 


4“The Death of Christ,” Denney, pp. 40, 41. 


42 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


It cannot, therefore, be set over against the other 
teaching of our Lord on this wonderful theme. The 
death of Christ, and I am sure this is the teaching of 
Jesus, is the culmination of His life of self-giving. 
The whole purpose of His coming was accomplished 
in all that He did in that coming, in His life of service, 
in His teaching of the things of the Kingdom of God, 
and in His death upon the cross. 

It is to be observed; also, that instead of this teach- 
ing about the necessity of His own death in order that 
forgiveness be given making void the love of God, it 
is the very manner in which that love is demonstrated. 
God’s love is not an abstraction. It is realizable; we 
can know it; we can rest in calm assurance upon it. 
But it is realizable only because of the presence of our 
Master in the world. What we know about it we 
know because we have known Him. If one tries to 
think of the love of God apart from what he has learned 
of that love in his experience with Jesus, and particu- , 
larly in his experience of the atonement, he will find 
himself lost. There is no contact with the saving love, 
the forgiving love of God, save as we have known it in 
the life and death of Jesus Christ. 

One cannot help but wonder just what place those 
would accord to Jesus in the whole scheme of divine 
things who are so distressed about His teaching con- 
cerning His death and the forgiveness of sins. If we 
rest our faith in God’s forgiveness upon the parable 
of the Lost Son alone, we have no place for Jesus in the 
Gospel. And yet, it must even then be confessed that 
we owe to Him our knowledge of the blessed truth that 
God forgives as a father. We cannot assent to any 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 43 


position which would eliminate Christ from the Gos- 
pel. It is noticeable that frequently those who think 
of the forgiveness of the Father, without any special 
necessity for the death of Jesus included in the scheme 
of things, always speak of Him as “teacher.”’ And 
such He is, to be sure; but is that all He is? Is it 
enough to think of Him as simply a teacher of God, 
and immortality, and righteousness? Is it sufficient 
that we believe in Him only as the first Christian, the 
first martyr to a new cause? Whatever we may say 
of this, it is enough to observe that it is not the place 
which the New Testament gives Him. It was not the 
place which He occupied in His own thinking. He 
not only tells us that God loves men and that His 
forgiveness to the truly penitent is freely, and fully, 
and unconditionally given, but He definitely places 
Himself in it all when He spoke of His blood as that 
of the new covenant, which was shed for many for 
the remission of sins. This is the position of Dr. 
Denney, and it is one which we are confident none can 
successfully deny as long as their faith in the New 
Testament lasts. “The love of God, I repeat, free as 
it is to sinful men,—unconditionally free,—is never 
conceived in the New Testament, either by our Lord 
Himself or by any of his followers, as an abstraction. 
Where the forgiveness of sin is concerned, it is not 
conceived as having reality or as taking effect apart 
from Christ. It is a real thing to us as it is mediated 
through Him, through His presence in the world, and 
ultimately through His death. The love of God by 
which we are redeemed from sin is a love which we 
do not know except as it comes in this way and at this 


44 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


cost; consequently, whatever we owe as sinners, to 
the love of God, we owe to the death of Jesus.” ° 

A summary of the teaching of Jesus concerning the 
divine forgiveness, as compared with that of the Old 
Testament, may be made in a sentence. While the Old 
Testament conceived the forgiveness of Jehovah as 
free and full, and while it was grounded in His mercy 
and lovingkindness, yet it is a near-forensic action. 
One cannot help but feel that there is in it the rela- 
tions of the judge to the convict, it is more official, 
and its best description is that of pardon. Jesus 
teaches us, on the other hand, that God forgives as a 
loving Father. This is the crowning conception. 
None can be higher or nobler than this. God forgives 
the penitent because He loves the sinner. He forgives, 
or this forgiving love is made known and effective 
through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The 
specifically Christian idea of forgiveness may then be 
defined as the restoration through Christ of normal 
personal relations between spirits essentially kindred. 
Through Christ the wandering son is brought home to 
the Father. 

2. The Apostolic Conception of Forgiveness. 

(1) In the earliest apostolic preaching. 

That the idea of forgiveness as taught in the life 
and work of Jesus underlies the preaching of the first 
age of the church is clear even in a casual reading of 
the Book of Acts. Peter, on Pentecost, in the first 
Gospel sermon, commands his fellow-Jews to repent 
and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, to the end 
that they may receive the remission of sins (Acts 


5 “The Death of Christ,” Denney, pp. 42, 43. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS AS 


2:38). Here the conditions are clearly stated to be 
that one must turn from sin to the Father and be 
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Forgiveness is 
granted on condition that we repent and obey the Mas- 
ter. It is here mediated through Christ. Before the 
Council he more boldly affirms the same proposition, 
saying, ‘“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom 
ye slew, hanging him on a tree. Him did God exalt 
with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to 
give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins’ (Acts 
5:30, 31). The remission of sins which God will give 
unto Israel is made possible because of the exaltation 
of Jesus as Prince and Saviour, from His humiliation 
and death upon the cross. This very instrument of 
horror and shame is become the instrument of glory 
in that, through it, God brings to sinful Israel the 
mighty blessings of the new dispensation. In his 
stirring address in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul joins Peter 
in the strength and boldness of his pronouncement 
when, concerning Jesus, he says, “Be it known unto 
you, therefore, brethren, that through this man is pro- 
claimed unto you remission of sins.” He tells Agrippa 
that the very essence of his divine commission is to be 
found in his work of opening the eyes of the Gentiles 
to the truth, and by doing so to turn them from dark- 
ness unto light, and from Satan’s power unto God, 
and “that they may receive remission of sins and an 
inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith” 
(Acts 26:18, 19). Peter refers to the conditions upon 
which forgiveness may be obtained on the part of one 
who is already a Christian when he councils Simon 
Magus to repent and. pray to God “if perhaps the 


46 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee’ (Acts 
pe reo) 

From these illustrations it is apparent that the 
Apostles preached the same things concerning forgive- 
ness as those which were in the mind of Jesus. There 
is no essential difference in their thought world and 
that of their Master as regards the nature and condi- 
tions of paternal forgiveness. If, therefore, as we go 
on beyond the first age of the church, we find these 
same Apostles using other terms to define their mean- 
ing when they speak of this wonderful blessing from 
God, may we not suppose that the terms they employ 
are but attempts to illustrate under other figures this 
fundamentally Christian idea with which we have been 
in such close contact throughout the Gospels and Acts? 
To me, this is the key to the solution of the many dif- 
ficulties which confront us when we emerge from the 
Book of Acts into the Apostolic Letters. If we keep 
constantly in mind the fundamental idea of the divine 
forgiveness as we have found it present in the words 
of Jesus and reiterated in the early preaching of the 
Apostles, we shall not stray far away into the danger- 
ous maze of speculation concerning the analogical 
words in which the Apostles later tried to make clear 
this idea. 

(2) Forgiveness in the Epistles of Paul. 

When we turn to the writings of Paul, we find a defi- 
nite return to the juridical or forensic manner of 
handling the whole subject of the remission of sins. 
It is not a return to the position of the Old Testament, 
however. Under all the illustrative figures which Paul 
employs is the great foundational Christian idea. If 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS ANT 


he uses the terms of the law court, it is that he may 
better explain to those who were so well acquainted 
with such terms, those to whom this very circle of 
ideas was native, the forgiveness which God, through 
Christ, has vouchsafed unto the penitent. It is signifi- 
cant that his use of the juristic terminology is almost 
entirely confined to his earlier and most controversial 
epistles. We have already noted that in the Old Testa- 
ment the sinner is frequently conceived as condemned 
in his sins by the law, and as standing before the bar 
of Jehovah as a culprit stands before a judge. In 
the later Judaism, this conception was widely preva- 
lent. The state of forgiveness was conceived as a state 
of “justification.” The one forgiven was “justified” 
or acquitted before the law of the crime he had com- 
mitted. It was only the natural thing, therefore, that 
Paul, in his mighty battles with the Judaizers, should 
employ this term which was so much a part of the men- 
tal possession of his determined antagonists. To them, 
forgiveness or “justification” was obtained by the 
works of the law, by human achievements. In a word, 
a man could earn forgiveness. To Paul, it was an act 
of favor or free grace on the part of the Father. To 
the Judaizers, it was a matter of strict observance of 
the letter of the law; to Paul, it was through the sur- 
render of will and life in faith. 

Professor Stevens has advanced an idea as to the 
reason for Paul’s employment of this term, which is so 
directly in line with all we shall say that we quote 
him extensively here. “Why did the Apostle speak so 
infrequently of forgiveness, the term which the primi- 
tive preachers so constantly used to denote the incep- 


48 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


tion of salvation? I think that the term ‘justification’ 
was better adapted to express the idea of a state of 
grace in which the believer stands (Rom. 5:2); it 
serves to emphasize the secure position of acceptance 
with God, occupied by him, notwithstanding the sin 
which still cleaves to him. It stood for the complete- 
ness and permanence of salvation. It is the verdict of 
God, which none can annul or gainsay.” ° 

It should be clearly held in mind that Paul means 
“forgiveness’’ when he uses the term “justification.” 
When he speaks of “justification, the reckoning of 
faith for righteousness, the imputation of righteous- 
ness apart from works, the forgiveness of iniquities, the 
non-imputation of sin,” he is using equivalent terms. 
It is very clear, when we study such a term as “justify” 
or “justification,” that many religious ideas must be 
conveyed to the mind in terms which express human 
relations. This is necessarily so, else they would be 
so abstract that they would not make logical appeal to 
the mind. There is no blinking the fact that religious 
language must be largely analogical. But no good in- 
terpreter would think, for a moment, of making such 
a term act as the form for the precise thought to be 
expressed. Such terms are illustrative of a grand 
truth, not in every particular, but in the main idea 
to be conveyed. Paul, so well acquainted with the circle 
of ideas to which such terms belonged, was much 
advantaged thereby in his controversy with the Ju- 
daizers who thought always in this circle. He did not 
consider it necessary to abandon this term, but since 
he and his opponents occupied in many things the same 

6 “The Theology of the New Testament,” Stevens, p. 418. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 49 


ground, and as they had much the same vocabulary, he 
discusses with them on this common ground the ques- 
tion of how a man may come to the place in which 
the verdict of acceptance on the part of the Father 
will be pronounced. 

Paul is in line with what we have discovered to be 
the Christian idea of forgiveness as revealed in the 
teaching of Jesus and the primitive Christian preach- 
ing. He grounds justification or forgiveness in the 
grace of God (Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:7). It is, there- 
fore, a free act on the part of the Father, or, to put 
it otherwise, God forgives freely. It is also a passion 
with him that the divine forgiveness is ours because of 
the life and work, and preéminently because of the sac- 
rifice of Christ upon the cross. Forgiveness is mediated 
through the Saviour. It is with this in mind that he 
Says we are justified by the blood of Christ (Rom. 
5:9), in the name of Christ (I Cor. 6:11), by Christ 
Himself (Gal. 2:16), and by the resurrection of 
Christ (Rom. 4:25). To him there is no forgiveness 
apart from the Lord. 

The conditions upon which one may receive this for- 
giveness are the same as we have universally discovered 
in Christian teaching,—repentance toward God and 
obedience in faith to Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1; Gal. 
2:16, 3:24). What he means by justification by faith 
we will discuss later; it forms a separate part of our 
subject. It is sufficient here to note that the appro- 
priation of the blessing of forgiveness, the entering 
into that new state where there is no longer any con- 
demnation, is by faith in the Christ, through whom 


50 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


the blessing is mediated to the lost sons and daughters 
of men. 

It may be noted, if we would consider Paul’s doctrine 
of the divine forgiveness systematically, that he de- 
fines it under two different but not contradictory 
thought forms. The one, we have been considering. 
The forensic term “justification,” while it embodies 
the idea of the security and finality of the verdict 
which the Father pronounces in making the sinner 
free from whatever the past may have been, does not 
fully tell the story of what Paul meant when he speaks 
of the paternal forgiveness. He uses the vital, the 
biological terminology, as well as the legal. This we 
find under the beautiful and familiar conception of 
“dying and rising with Christ.” And there is no in- 
congruity between the two. Paul’s Gospel is not two; 
it is one. The two different expressions are, as we 
have tried to show before, but two illustrative methods 
of making known the Christian idea of forgiveness, 
which he had received and which was the common 
treasure of the Church of Christ. The whole concep- 
tion is beautifully set forth in the Roman letter (Rom. 
6:1-5). The believer dies with Christ; he is raised 
with Christ. Here is gloriously expressed that sense of 
union with the Saviour, in which we are saved. When 
he is forgiven, the sinner enters into a new state which 
is “righteousness in Christ” (ixawwljvar év Xpit T@) 
(II Cor. 5:21). To be in this new state of acceptance, 
i.e., to be in Christ, is the same as to have that right- 
eousness which is through faith in Christ, and that 
righteousness which is from God (Phil. 3:9). To ac- 
cept the forgiveness which God offers through Christ, 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 51 


by obedient faith, is to “put on Christ’? (Gal. 3: 27) 
by being baptized into Christ, and to ‘“‘be in Christ” 
means to “be a new creature” (II Cor. 5:17). Such 
a conception as this denotes a mutual fellowship, a mys- 
tic union. One of the favorite phrases of the beloved 
Apostle to the Gentiles, to describe that new condition or 
state into which the forgiven enters, is to be in Christ 
(év Xpisr@, éy avo). 

There is another side to this conception, one which 
grows out of it, the thought form in which he describes 
the entering of the forgiven state through Christ as 
dying to sin and rising to holiness. Such a view as 
this ought forever to absolve Paul from the stigma of 
being a mere legalist. For fear that there might arise 
in the minds of those addressed in his Roman letter an 
unwarranted inference from his doctrine of justifica- 
tion, he defends it by calling attention to its true impli- 
cation. The imaginary objector might say, “It is well 
that we are free from the condemnation pronounced 
against our sins by the law. It is true that we are de- 
clared free, and that we are, therefore, restored to our 
former relation with the Father; but what about sins? 
They still remain with us. Will not such a doctrine 
even work to the encouragement of further sin?” 
This Paul refutes by showing the true inwardness of 
his teaching. Justification cannot be divorced from 
sanctification. It is in the new state that sanctification 
as regards the growth of moral character receives its 
strongest impetus to action. It is because we are in 
the new state that we have the power to grow into 
the likeness of Him who has made our salvation pos- 
sible. To be accepted with Christ means that we break 


52 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


off with the old life of sin, as a man breaks with the 
present life when he dies. It means that as we rise 
into the new state with Christ we rise into a life dedi- 
cated to Him, and, therefore, a life of holiness. This 
form of expressing the great Christian idea of for- 
giveness is, like the term “justification,” an analogical 
term. But it does that which the forensic term fails to 
do: it conveys to the heart the personal element in the 
idea of forgiveness, which was so characteristic of the 
parabolic descriptions of Jesus. While the former 
word is Jewish in the derivation of its ideas, the latter 
expression belongs decidedly to Paul’s Christian vocab- 
ulary. We shall consider this whole matter more care- 
fully when we discuss the relationship between justifi- 
cation and sanctification. It is enough to emphasize 
here that we need not break with Paul on account of 
a supposed lack of ethical teaching in his doctrine of 
justification. When we consider the whole of that 
teaching, we find that it is ethical to the very heart. 
We get ourselves into trouble only when we try to treat 
his analogical terms as though they were precise forms 
into which we can put all his meaning on the subject. 
This he himself did not attempt, and neither should we 
try to do it. He is fundamentally in line with the 
Christian idea of forgiveness as it is taught in the 
Gospels by our Lord and repeated in the powerful 
preaching of the primitive church. 

From our study of forgiveness, as it is exhibited 
in the Biblical references to which we have attended, 
we may say that in the main it can be summarized in 
two statements. 

It is, first, a full and free pardon of our sins on 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 53 


the part of the heavenly Father, and a restoration of 
the erring one to the position in the Father’s home. 
It is a recovery of the sinner to normal personal rela- 
tions. 

In the second place, it is mediated to the sinner 
through the life-giving of Jesus Christ. Through Him 
we know of the Father’s love, and in our union with 
Him in His death and resurrection we enter into a 
state in which there is no longer any condemnation. 
The state of forgiveness is, then, far from being a mere 
formal acquittal, a mere legal transaction or forensic 
procedure. It is a vital and life-giving experience 
through which we come into union with the world’s 
only Saviour. 


III. FROM OUR SURVEY OF THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF THE 
DIVINE ACT OF FORGIVING, IT IS EVIDENT THAT 
FORGIVENESS IS A CHANGE OF STATE OR RE- 
LIGIOUS CONDITION 


In his great study of the “Remission of Sins,” 
Alexander Campbell states six propositions illustrative 
of this fact, which may be very profitably considered 
here. 

1. “The Apostles taught their disciples, or converts, 
that their sins were forgiven, and uniformly addressed 
them as pardoned or justified people.’ * Whenever 
men and women had come to the place in which they 
had believed in Christ, had repented toward Christ, 
and had been baptized into Him, they were then mem- 
bers of His church, and were always addressed by the 

7 “Millennial Harbinger, Abridged,’ Campbell, Vol. I, p. 510. 


54 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Apostles as those who through this process had be- 
come pardoned or justified persons (I John 2:12; 
Hebrews, Chapters 8 and 10; Eph. 4: 32; 1:7; Col. 
teotas Cor. 64111 “Petale 227 Gres ie) eee 
then, is a definite and direct proof that Apostolic Chris- 
tians were those who had entered into a new state or 
relationship to God, in which they were considered 
forgiven. 

2. “The apostolic converts were addressed by their 
teachers as justified persons’ (Rom. 5:1; 3:24; l 
Cor. 6: 11; James:2:> 245 Rom)38:323)..) Hereutissae 
forensic idea of acquittal. The culprit is treated as 
though he had not done the wrong at all. He is free 
from it, and thus is justified. He has experienced a 
change from the state of guilt to that of pardon, or 
justification. 

3. “The ancient Christians were addressed by the 
Apostles as sanctified persons” (I Cor. 4:16). They 
were universally addressed as though they had en- 
tered into a new relationship to God, in which they 
were set apart to a holy calling, in which they could, 
through the means of divine grace, attain to that holli- 
ness of character which becomes the sons of God. We 
shall consider more fully the relationship between sanc- 
tification and forgiveness. It is sufficient here to note 
as a fact that the Christians of the days of the Apostles 
were addressed as those who, through Christ, were 
sanctified persons. 

4. “The ancient Christians, the apostolic converts, 
were addressed as ‘reconciled to God’”’ (Rom. 5: 10; 
IT Cor. 5: 183" Col.at2n)2s Invtheir acceptanceman 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 55 


Christ as Lord of life, through faith and obedience, 
they had completed the process through which they have 
entered into that state of joy in which the old barriers 
have been broken down, and they are received back into 
the Father’s fold as though they had never been away. 
As soon as they become Christians, they are God’s 
children; they belong to His family; they are recon- 
ciled to Him. 

5. “The first disciples were considered and ad- 
dressed by the Apostles as ‘adopted into the family of 
God? (Gal) 4:6; Eph 15). Theretis, not. some; 
thing else which requires to be done after those steps 
have been taken, which makes a sinner a Christian, 1n 
order to come to the definite knowledge of adoption. 
The same process which makes a man a Christian at 
the same time makes him an adopted son of God. 
From that day when he receives the forgiveness of past 
sins, he is God’s child. 

6. “The first Christians were taught by their in- 
spired teachers to consider themselves saved persons” 
Peter 42; 1 Cor, 1218; 15°2))° Obedience toyibe 
commandments of Christ, through faith in Him, brings 
one to the free and full forgiveness which is the gift 
of the Father; and when one has this forgiveness he 
is a saved person, he is one who from past sins is free. 

It is to be noted that none of these terms are ex- 
pressive of any quality of mind or soul or of any pos- 
ture of the body. They are all indicative of a change 
of state or relation to God. It is not so much of 
moral change that they speak but of religion. This 
does not mean that such terms have nothing to do with 


56 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


character; such, indeed, is far from the truth. We 
shall see eventually that out of the new state there 
blooms the new character, that there is a new character 
only because there is a new state. And it is clear, also, 
that these terms are not expressive of different degrees 
of salvation or of moral perfection; they are different 
terms to express the same new religious condition. It 
is evident that when one enters into the new state as 
expressed by one of these terms, he enters into all. In 
a word, every one who is pardoned, is justified, sancti- 
fied, reconciled, adopted, and saved. Mr. Campbell 
gives a very fine illustration of this in a reference to 
the marriage relation and the change of state that takes 
place when one enters it. A woman changes her state 
in marriage. As soon as the words of the marriage 
ceremony are spoken she has become a wife. But she 
has also, by the same act, become a daughter, a niece, 
an aunt, a sister, etc. By becoming a wife she has 
entered into a score of new relations which before 
were not hers. So it is that, by entering into the for- 
given state, the pardoned sinner becomes “an heir, a 
son of Abraham, a brother, or he is justified, sancti- 
fied, adopted and saved.” 

We may in summary, then, say that in the circle of 
New Testament ideas forgiveness is always a change 
of state, a change in which the wandering sinner is re- 
stored to the normal relations which by right belong 
to the son of the Father. Out of these new relations, 
and because of them, there is to be grown that new 
character which will be what the Father desires of 
those who are His. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 57 


IV. IT IS EVIDENT, ALSO, FROM THIS STUDY, THAT THE 
VARIOUS TERMS USED CONCERNING THE NEW 
STATE ARE ANALOGICAL OR ILLUSTRATIVE 
WORDS IN WHICH THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF FOR- 
GIVENESS Is SET FORTH 


The failure to recognize this fact has been the fruit- 
ful source of much unnecessary speculation. There is 
one great Christian idea of forgiveness expressed under 
many varying terms. These terms are but thought 
forms and were never meant to be considered scientifi- 
cally precise. No one of them, alone, could adequately 
set forth the idea of forgiveness as it existed in the 
mind of God. But one of these thought vehicles will 
illuminate one phase of the thought which another 
would not bring out at all. Professor Stevens has 
stated the case exactly: “Religious truth must often be 
conveyed in terms which reflect human relations. In 
such cases, we never think of regarding the forms of 
expression as scientific definitions. Nor do we, on the 
other hand, repudiate such analogical expressions as 
false and misleading, so long as they convey the par- 
ticular truth which we wish to teach. Such terms are 
more concrete and realistic than the more abstract 
language which we should employ in efforts at precise 
definition.” ® 

A recognition of this principle will explain the long 
supposed double-doctrine of Paul in regard to for- 
giveness. As a matter of fact, there are not two doc- 
trines, but one, and the supposed second doctrine is 
really the first analogically expressed. Paul’s funda- 


8 “The Theology of the New Testament,” Stevens, p. 421. 


58 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


mental doctrine of divine forgiveness is that which 
he had received as the traditional Christian doctrine, 
which may be traced back for its source to Christ. 
There can be no doubt about this. The supposed dif- 
ference between Jesus and Paul has been greatly exag- 
gerated. Paul’s juridical doctrine of justification is 
but an illustration, in terms which are familiar to those 
with whom he found himself in battle, of the great 
Christian doctrine. Because he thus employed terms 
which would bring home to his hearers the central 
truth, are we to accuse him of being untrue to the great 
ethical doctrine which he had received? Not at all. 
He simply does that which any Christian has the right 
to do. He illustrated the ethical and moral by terms 
which would carry his thought to the minds of those 
who heard him. His conception of salvation by union 
with Christ is an ethical salvation through and through, 
because it is “intensely real and personal.” It is my 
own conviction that such is true of the whole New 
Testament doctrine of forgiveness and salvation. It 
may be illustrated under different forms, forms in 
which human relations are expressed, but funda- 
mentally, it is throughout the same doctrine as that 
which the Apostles and the Church through them re- 
ceived from the Lord Himself. Alexander Campbell 
explains the underlying principle by which this con- 
stant misapprehension of the various analogical terms 
may be dissipated; hence I quote him extensively here. 
“Regeneration, conversion, justification, sanctification, 
etc., are frequently represented as component parts of 
one process : whereas, any one of these, independent of 
the others, gives a full representation of the subject. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 59 


Is a man regenerated? He is converted, justified, and 
regenerated. With some system-builders, however, 
regeneration is an instantaneous act, between which 
and conversion there is a positive, substantive interval ; 
next comes justification; and then, in some still future 
time, sanctification.” ® 


V. WE CANNOT CLOSE OUR STUDY OF THIS QUESTION 
WITHOUT A CONSIDERATION OF THE RELATION 
BETWEEN FORGIVENESS AND SANCTIFICATION 


We have frequently hinted at the relation, through- 
out our study, of the subject of forgiveness. We must 
note it more carefully, however, for it is just here 
that much of the speculation has found its root. It 
has been customary among many of the Protestant 
theologians to distinguish sharply between justification, 
or forgiveness, and sanctification. A clearer view of 
the whole subject makes it apparent that such a sharp 
line of differentiation cannot be drawn. Dr. Clarke 
evidently speaks a half-truth when he says, “Plainly, 
sanctification is not an event, but a process.” He is 
speaking of the progress of the new life in the soul, and 
in this sense he is correct in affirming that it is a 
process. Viewed from the ethical standpoint, it can 
be nothing else. But in the New Testament, sanctifi- 
cation is spoken of in two senses, the religious and 
the ethical. Viewed from the religious standpoint, it 
is decidedly an event. Sanctification, as the progress 
of the divine life in the soul, begins with sanctification 
which is an event, a new religious relation to God, 

9 “Millennial Harbinger, Abridged.” Campbell, Vol. I, p. 502. 


60 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


which is entered when one is forgiven. Manifestly, 
one of the weaknesses of the older theology was its 
differentiation between forgiveness, as a mere formal 
verdict of acquittal, and sanctification, or the real sal- 
vation which was the end of man’s acceptance of Christ. 
Dr. Dale says that “remission of sins, if it stood alone, 
would leave us unsaved, is one of the commonplaces of 
Christian theology.” *° But remission of sins in its 
true New Testament signification does not leave us 
unsaved. It is a complete and adequate salvation, or it 
is nothing at all. And it is just here that the older 
theology found itself in inextricable difficulties. When 
a man was formally justified he was not more saved, 
in the sense of a complete saivation, than he was be- 
fore. A recognition of the indissoluble connection be- 
tween forgiveness and sanctification would have saved 
it from this palpable error. Forgiveness of sins is not 
merely preliminary to sanctification: it is sanctification, 
a new religious state which we enter by faith and 
obedience; it is the beginning of that progress of the 
divine life in the soul toward perfection. 

That the state of sanctification which we enter in re- 
ceiving forgiveness is not moral perfection is experi- 
mentally known. The desire to sin is still with us; 
there are even occasional lapses into transgression, 
though the spirit desires only righteousness. Dr. Den- 
ney defines the precise meaning of sanctification, when 
it is considered as forgiveness, in his discussion of the 
meaning of the word ayidGeuy in the book of Hebrews. 
“The people were sanctified, not when they were raised 
to moral perfection,—a conception utterly strange to 


10 “The Atonement,” Dale, p. 336. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 61 


the New Testament as to the Old,—but when, through 
the annulling of their sin by sacrifice, they had been 
constituted into a people of God, and in the person of 
their representative had access to His presence. The 
word ayidCewv, in short, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
corresponds as nearly as possible to the Pauline 
dixatodv; the sanctification of the one writer is the 
justification of the other, and the mpocaywyy7 or access 
to God, which Paul emphasizes as the primary 
blessing of justification (Rom. 5:2; Eph. 2:18; 3:12), 
appears everywhere in Hebrews as the primary re- 
ligious act of ‘drawing near’ to God, through the great 
High Priest (Hebrews 4:16; 7: 19-25; 10:22). It 
seems fair, then, to argue that the immediate effect of 
Christ’s death is religious rather than ethical. In 
technical language, it alters their relation to God, or 
is conceived as doing so, rather than their character. 
Their character, too, alters eventually, but it is on the 
basis of that primary and religious act; the religious 
change is not a result of a moral one, nor an unreal 
abstraction from it.’’** Professor Denney’s clearly cor- 
rect position here may be illustrated by a consideration 
of the difference between state and character. Too 
often these are confounded. Alexander Campbell 
splendidly illustrates the difference. “Childhood is a 
state; so is manhood. Now a person in a state of child- 
hood may act, sometimes, like a person in a state of 
manhood; and those arrived at a state of manhood 
may, in character or behavior, resemble those in a 
state of childhood. A person in the state of a son may 
have the character of a servant; and a person in the 


11 “The Death of Christ,’ Denney, p. 160. 


62 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


state of a servant may have the character of a son. 
Parents and children, masters and servants, husbands 
and wives, are terms denoting relations or states. To 
act in accordance with these states or relations is quite 
a different thing from being in any of these states. 
Many persons enter into a state of matrimony and yet 
act unworthily of it.” ** Thus it is that through for- 
giveness a sinner may enter into a new relationship 
with God,—that of sonship,—and yet there has not 
immediately been a great change in his character. He 
is sanctified in the sense that he is now set apart to 
the service of God; he has entered, by faith, into a new 
and wondrous relationship. 

The whole matter may be summed up in one sen- 
tence: the sanctification which results from forgive- 
ness is a new religious state or attitude to God, out 
of which the ethical transformation or sanctification 
grows. It is impossible to over-emphasize the im- 
portance of this fact. It is clearly the teaching of 
the New Testament writers. We may again quote 
Alexander Campbell, as he considers the relation be- 
tween forgiveness and sanctification: “But these terms 
represent a state and not character, or an influence 
which state has upon character, which makes the 
state of immense importance from the moral and re- 
ligious point of view. Indeed, the strongest arguments 
which the Apostles use with the Christians, to urge 
them forward in the cultivation and display of all the 
moral and religious excellencies of character, are drawn 
from the meaning and value of the state in which they 
are placed. Because forgiven, they should forgive; be- 

12 “Millennial Harbinger, Abridged,” Campbell, Vol. I, p. 518. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 63 


cause justified, they should live righteously; because 
sanctified, they should walk holily and unblameably; 
because reconciled to God, they should cultivate peace 
with all men and act benevolently toward all; because 
adopted, they should walk in the dignity and purity 
of the sons of God; because saved, they should abound 
in thanksgivings, praises, and rejoicings, living soberly, 
righteously, and godly, looking forward to the blessed 
hope.” ** In a word, it is in this new state as for- 
given, therefore, as Christians, that we are surrounded 
by all those means of grace through which the 
knowledge of the will of the Father is more perfectly 
ours, those influences through which the love of God 
is more clearly made known to our needy souls. The 
progress of the new and divine life is possible because 
of the new and glorious state into which, through the 
forgiveness in Christ, we have come. Such, in all its 
simplicity and beauty, is the teaching of the New 
Testament on the relation between the act of forgive- 
ness and the new life of sanctification which must 
be ours because of it. The salvation is real and actual; 
it is, indeed, a complete and perfect redemption in 
Him. 

The relationship is even more beautifully set forth 
when we consider the regenerating and sanctifying ef- 
fects of forgiveness itself. This is something which 
is beyond the realm of the speculative; it is an experi- 
ence realizable in human life. Dr. Denney, in his last 
great work, has not overstated this as a fact when he 
says, “Reconciliation to God comes through God’s for- 
giveness of that by which we have been estranged from 

13 “Millennial Harbinger, Abridged,” Campbell, Vol. I, p. 518. 


64 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Him; and of all experiences in the religion of sinful 
men it is the most deeply felt and far-reaching. We do 
not here have to measure what is or what is not within 
its power; but every one who knows what it is to be 
forgiven knows, also, that forgiveness is the greatest 
regenerative force in the life of man.” ** The sense 
of debt to the one who thus forgives is evoked by the 
very act itself, and from it, as foundation, he builds 
the character, sanctified and holy. From this beginning 
the process toward the pure and holy life goes on joy- 
fully. . 

The reason for the regenerating power of forgive- 
ness, in the Christian acceptance of the term, is to be 
found in the fact that “the only forgiveness Jesus 
recognizes is that which makes the forgiven heart the 
home of the love which forgives; in other words, that 
by which a man is born again the child of God. Hence, » 
forgiveness or reconciliation is, in a strict sense, every- | 
thing in the Christian religion. It does not need to be | 
eked out with something else. God trusts to it, to 
keep the sinner right with Him, just as we ourselves 
trust_when we forgive. The child whom his father 
or mother pardons through pain cannot but be good 
while the sense of this forgiveness rests upon his heart, 
and it is this simple principle upon which the whole 
New Testament rests. True forgiveness regenerates. 
Justification is the power which sanctifies. This truth, 
which we can verify in our forgiveness of one another 
daily, is the ultimate and fundamental truth of the 
Gospel.” *® It is not too much to say that in one sense 


14 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,’ Denney, p. 6. 
15 Jbid., p. 137. 


THE NATURE OF FORGIVENESS 65 


forgiveness stands related to the new and holy life, as 
cause to effect. Out of the experience of forgiveness, 
and because of the debt we owe to Him who in His 
love has pardoned our sins, we grow the life that is 
hidden with Christ in God. 


CHAPTER II 
THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 


“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should 
not perish, but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). 

If Jesus did not actually utter these words, as cer- 
tain scholars claim, there can still be no doubt that He 
is set forth by John as giving expression to a New 
Testament idea. In the teaching of the New Testa- 
ment from beginning to end the ground of our for- 
giveness is the love of God. God is love. This is the 
core of the revelation. He loves the sinner while He 
hates his sin. We have already been in contact with 
this sublime truth in the parable of the Lost Boy, the 
Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Great 
Debtor. And before this we noted the preparation for 
this teaching in the words of the Prophets. To them 
Jehovah was ever a God of lovingkindness, of tender 
mercy and one whose desire for the salvation of His 
people was forever. ‘This thought was carried over 
into the New Testament and there amplified in the 
teaching of Jesus. The position in the New Testament 
is that the ground of our forgiveness is the love of 
God, so deep and rich that it is the last reality in the 
universe. 

But there is another strain of thought which some 


have found difficult to reconcile with the teaching of 
66 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 67 


Jesus: that the Father forgives freely and fully all who 
come to Him. It is that this forgiveness is made 
known through Jesus and through Him alone. To 
reconcile these apparently antagonistic positions will 
be our endeavor in this chapter. 


I. THE WHOLE QUESTION RESOLVES ITSELF INTO AN 
INQUIRY AS TO THE PLACE OF JESUS IN GOD’S 
SCHEME OF FORGIVENESS 


We referred to this question casually in our previous 
discussion; in this study we will devote ourselves to 
it alone. It is to be noted that such an inquiry never 
addressed itself to the minds of our fathers. They 
never at any time had doubt about the place of Jesus 
in the plan of things by which the Father graciously 
vouchsafes forgiveness unto His erring children. To 
them there was no forgiveness apart from Jesus. 
God’s love was the ground of that forgiveness, yet 
they knew nothing of that love save as it was manifest 
in the life and work and death of Jesus. The message 
which won them to allegiance to their Master was a 
message of His death for sin and His resurrection unto 
justification. It was not an etherial gospel, divorced 
from the foundational facts as they are recorded in the 
New Testament, which made them Christians; it was a 
gospel in which Jesus had done something on the 
Cross without which forgiveness would have been an 
impossible and incredible thing—a death which, even 
though they could not explain it, had yet made such 
a difference in the relationship between man and God 
that the Father could truly forgive. In a word, the 


68 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


undeniable faith of our fathers was the faith that God 
has forgiven us for Christ’s sake. 

During the last two generations, however, there has 
come about a change so momentous that it actually 
effects all this and makes a re-study of the whole 
scheme of forgiveness necessary. A school has arisen 
which, while cordially recognizing the fact that the 
ground of forgiveness is the love of God, yet denies 
that it is necessary that such love needs an intermediary 
through whom it can manifest itself in gracious, for- 
giving power. The faith of the whole church has been 
ruthlessly thrust aside, and not in the way of ostensibly 
repudiating Christianity but in the avowed way of its 
purification. The inquiry takes the following direc- 
tion: Christianity is a stream. It begins in a clear, 
crystal spring of truth. It tumbles down the rugged 
mountainsides of Judza into the great Roman world. 
As it rolls onward in its first turbulent years, it rapidly 
grows and into it flow other streams, discoloring its 
clear waters. The years pass and the once clear stream 
has now become a mighty river carrying within its 
muddy waters the truth, but strangely mixed with the 
multifold errors which a thousand influences of the 
years have brought. Christianity must be purified and 
reformed. To bring about this happy result it is neces- 
sary to go back to its source. The older Protestant 
Theologians would have heartily agreed with this and 
they would have placed the source of the faith in the 
New Testament. But the new Theologian who holds 
this view does not stop at the New Testament period. 
To purify Christianity it is necessary to go into the 
New Testament itself and cast out of it those elements 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 69 


which cannot be found in the teaching of Jesus. In 
a word, it is to go back to the authority of Jesus as 
it is found in the Gospels. We must not only purify 
and reform the structure of Christianity; we must 
purify and reform the New Testament. Thus, in 
thrusting Jesus out of the place which the unanimous 
assent of the New Testament writers accord to Him, 
they appeal to the authority of Jesus Himself. Har- - 
nack has most clearly set forth this whole position in 
his affirmation that in the Gospel the Son really has no 
place at all but only the Father. Thus, in the last two 
generations, the place of Jesus in the Gospel, and con- 
sequently in the very heart-proposition of the Gospel, 
the forgiveness of sins, has not only been questioned, 
but denied altogether. 

A more exhaustive consideration of this widely prev- 
alent attitude is here imperative in our study of the 
ground of forgiveness. Those who advocate it hold, 
in brief, that there are two Gospels in the New Testa- 
ment, not one. These they denominate the Gospel of 
Paul and the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus is 
the Gospel within the Gospel. These Gospels, how- 
ever, are in direct antithesis, the one resting on the au- 
thority of Paul, the other taking its root in the teach- 
ing of Jesus Himself. We must go through the Gospel 
of Paul and recover the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel 
of Paul is that which we have noted as the Gospel of 
our fathers, the Gospel of the Church through the 
years and the Gospel of the Church in the glory of the 
Apostolic days. Instead of the Son having no place, 
but only the Father, in the Gospel as believed and 
taught by the Apostles and early Christians, the Son 


70 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


bulks so large that He fills all things. He is not only 
the pattern believer, He is the object of faith, the one 
on whom we are ready to throw ourselves in loving 
trust. The Gospel of Jesus, the one preached by Jesus, 
and the one to which we must find our way as the true 
source of the Christian religion, is one in which the 
Master taught men to trust in God through all the 
temptations, vicissitudes, and agonies of life, to believe 
in fellowman and the love of the Father. Jesus is the 
first Christian, the first martyr to a glorious cause. 
He believed in immortality; we should also believe in 
immortality. The best designation of His office is 
that of teacher. He is not Saviour in the sense that 
anything He did 1s efficacious in our salvation; He can 
be called Saviour only in the sense that He saves us 
from ourselves and from the wrong ideas of life by 
teaching us the true way. He saves us by His philos- 
ophy of life; His belief in God, in which he teaches us 
to share. It is evident that these two so-called Gospels 
are in antithesis. If Jesus is only our teacher, the pat- 
tern believer, then the Gospel of Paul is an absurd in- 
vention; if Jesus is Saviour then the so-called Gospel 
which owes its being to Him is inadequate. It is in- 
teresting that Harnack, though he holds the view of 
the two Gospels antithetical to each other, nevertheless 
affirms that this double Gospel, as it is set forth in the 
New Testament, is just as necessary at the present day 
as it has been necessary in all the periods of the past.* 
But if the two Gospels be acknowledged it is difficult to 
understand how one holding this view can overlook 


1“The Two-fold Gospel in the New Testament,” a lecture by 
Adolph Harnack, D.D. (Williams and Norgate). 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 71 


the evident schism created in the New Testament. 
There can be but little doubt that the differences be- 
tween Paul and Jesus have been greatly exaggerated. 
Those differences are more apparent than real. But to 
this we will recur later. 

That the so-called Gospel of Paul is the Gospel of the 
New Testament must be patent to even a casual reader. 
Paul speaks glowingly of the mighty ground of for- 
giveness and also of the manner in which that for- 
giving love manifests itself when he writes to the Ro- 
mans, “being justified freely by his grace through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God sent 
forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood” 
(Rom. 3: 24-25). All that is blessing from the Father 
is ours because we are His, and of Him, who is the 
Lord, for “of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made 
unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanc- 
tification, and redemption” (I Cor. 1:30). The re- 
demption which we thus enjoy is ours because of some- 
thing accomplished when He shed His blood upon the 
tree. This act is also the manifestation of the grace 
or love which was His for the sinner and it is this 
which causes the Apostle to exult “in the glory of his 
grace, which he freely bestowed upon us in the Be- 
loved: in whom we have our redemption through his 
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to 
the riches of his grace, which he made to abound to- 
ward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known 
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good 
pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation 
of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in 
Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon 


72 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


the earth” (Eph. 1:6-10). It would be difficult to 
frame a sentence which would give to Christ a loftier 
place in the whole divine scheme of things. But Paul 
further affirms directly that forgiveness is mediated 
through Christ, when, exhorting the Ephesians, he 
writes, “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, for- 
giving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave 
you” (Eph. 4:32). He reminds the Corinthians of 
their former terrible state in which they were alienated 
from the Kingdom of God and of the debt they now 
owe to the Father for “such were some of you: but 
ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in 
the spirit of our God” (I Cor. 5:11). Here the jus- 
tification or forgiveness of the Father is given through 
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The so-called Pauline Gospel goes further in its af- 
firmations regarding the place of Jesus in the plan of 
forgiveness. It is not only in the name of Jesus that 
the sinner is forgiven, but it is because of what the 
Lord has done specifically in His death upon the cross. 
In his classic peroration in the eighth chapter of the 
Roman letter Paul’s whole position as to Christ’s place 
in God’s forgiving love is eloquently set forth. “What 
then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, 
who is against us? He that spared not His own Son, 
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also 
with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay any- 
thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that jus- 
tifieth (or forgiveth) ; who is he that condemneth? It 
is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised 
from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 73 


also maketh intercession for us. Who-shall separate us 
from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword?” (Rom. 8:31-35). Here the love of God is 
identified with the love of Christ. It is through the 
sacrificial love of Christ that we know of the forgiv- 
ing love of the Father. Since God has forgiven us in 
Christ there is none who can condemn. The state of 
the forgiven is secure; nothing shall be able to sepa- 
rate him from that mighty love which is the ground of 
his forgiveness and which was manifest in what it did 
in Christ. ‘The Apostle then proceeds with his rhap- 
sody, ‘Nay in all these things we are more than con- 
querors through him that loved us. For I am per- 
suaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- 
ture, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8: 37-38). 
We may feel that Paul was mistaken in this attitude; 
we may assure ourselves that his thinking concerning 
Christ had caused him to accord to Him a position out 
of all proportion to that which His life and death and 
teaching by right could give Him, but that in his gos- 
pel Christ was all in all, the manifestation of the love 
of the Father in such degree that without Him that love 
could not be known; this we cannot successfully deny. 

There are two more mighty statements of Paul 
which must be considered in any study of just the place 
which Jesus occupied in His Gospel. The first one is the 
familiar word in the fifth chapter of Romans. He has 
been talking about our justification through faith, and 


74 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


it is but the logical thing to proceed from this to that 
ground of our forgiveness which makes our human re- 
sponse, in faith, possible. “For while we were yet weak, 
in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely 
for a righteous man will one die; for peradventure for 
the good man some would even dare to die. But God 
commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:6-8). 

Through the death of Christ, God’s own forgiving love 
has been made known. He loved us before this act, it 
was because of such love that He could endure it: it 
is through such an act that His forgiving love is com- 
mended to us. “Much more then, being now justified 
by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of 
God through him. For if, while we were enemies, we 
were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, 
much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his 
life; and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now re- 
ceived the reconciliation” (Rom. 5:9-11). By His 
blood we are forgiven. By something which He ac- 
complished on the cross we have come into a new state 
in which there is forgiveness and in which we are se- 
cure. Once forgiven by His blood, by our appropria- 
tion of its merits to our souls, we are sanctified by the 
teachings of His life, by that growth in the soul which 
brings us onward toward perfection. Our joy is in the 
Father, in His wondrous love, from which we cannot 
be separated but which we know only through the Lord 
Jesus Christ, for through Him has come reconcilia- 
tion as a gift of forgiving love. The position is so 
unmistakable that it requires no further elucidation. 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 75 


The second great passage in which Paul’s so-called 
Gospel is strikingly set forth occurs in his Colossian 
letter. “For it was the good pleasure of the Father 
that in him should all the fullness dwell; and through 
him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made 
peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I 
say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the 
heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and 
enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath 
he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death” 
(Col, 1: 19-22). These words but reaffirm the posi- 
tion with which we have been in contact in all the other 
passages which set forth Paul’s Gospel. God’s for- 
giving love is vouchsafed in Christ; it is not known 
save as it is realized in what the Master did in His life 
and particularly in his sacrificial death. 

There is one further statement of Paul which not 
only expresses what he thought of the place of Jesus 
in God’s plan of forgiveness, but one also in which he 
is definitely in line with the great teaching of the Mas- 
ter in the parable of the lost sheep. This is the well- 
known statement in the second letter to the Corinthians 
in which he says, “But all things are of God, who 
reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto 
us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckon- 
ing unto them their trespasses, and having committed 
unto us the word of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5: 18-19). 
Here the forgiving love of God is a seeking love. The 
Father takes the initiative and bears the cost in our 
salvation. And can we think of seeking love in the 
abstract sense? Can we think of a forgiving love, 


76 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


which seeks us, apart from some definite and lovable 
manifestation of that love? These are lofty heights to 
which Paul carries us, but they are heights not un- 
familiar to us, for Jesus has taken us there before when 
he tells us of the loving shepherd who braved the storms 
and mountain torrents that he might bring back his 
own. It is the grandest conception of God’s love to 
which the mind can attain, that one caught up into the 
cadences of a Christian Hymn loved round the world. 


“Lord, thou hast here thy ninety and nine, 
Are they not enough for thee? 
But the shepherd made answer, 
One of mine has wandered away from me, 
And although the road be rough and steep 
I go to the desert to find my sheep, 
I go to the desert to find my sheep. 


“But none of the ransomed ever knew 
How deep were the waters crossed, 
Nor how dark was the night, 

That the Lord passed through, 

Ere he found his sheep that was lost. 
Out in the desert he heard its cry, 
Sick and helpless and ready to die, 
Sick and helpless and ready to die.” 


It is to be noted in considering the so-called Gospel 
of Paul ihat it is not only his, but as we have before 
stated, it is the Gospel of the Apostolic church, the 
Gospel of the New Testament. No matter where we 
turn in the epistolatory writings we are in contact with 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS V7 


it. We may say that this is all due to the mighty in- 
fluence of Paul, but somehow this fails to satisfy us. 
We cannot but ask how men with such profound faith 
as we know the early disciples possessed could be so 
quickly shaken from their earliest convictions if they 
were different from those which they so often and so 
confidently express. The writer of the Hebrew letter 
speaks exultingly and his message is Pauline, 1.e., it is 
in line with Paul’s great position. “God having of old 
time spoken unto the father in the prophets by divers 
portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of 
these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he ap- 
pointed heir of all things, through whom also he made 
the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and 
the very image of his substance, and upholding all 
things by the word of his power, when he had made 
purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
Majesty on high’ (Heb. 1:1-3). The method of 
God’s speaking to men is here emphasized; His address 
through great personalities, the manifestation of Him- 
self through men. And this is precisely what Paul has 
affirmed when he thinks of God’s forgiving love; it is 
demonstrated in a realizable manner in His own Son. 

If we turn to the other types of New Testament doc- 
trine we find ourselves in the same circle of ideas; 
the circle in which the whole Christian community was 
at home and with which all were familiar. If we turn 
to the Johannine type we may read, “Herein was the 
love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his 
only begotten Son into the world that we might live 
through him” (I John 4:9). There is here no direct 
reference to forgiveness through Christ, but rather 


78 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


to that which ever results from forgiveness. But the 
writer continues, and then we see that the love which 
he knows is that which is focused in Christ’s death, 
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he 
loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for 
our sins” (I John 4:10). 

The Petrine Gospel is in line with the other types 
of doctrine as to the place of Jesus in the scheme of for- 
giveness. There are two great passages in the First 
Epistle of Peter which set forth Christ’s place as we 
have found it in all our study. In his exhortation to 
holy living the writer reminds those to whom he writes 
that the cost of their redemption has been dear. “Ye 
were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver 
or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down 
from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a 
lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood 
of Christ: who was foreknown indeed before the 
foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end 
of the times for your sake, who through him are be- 
lievers in God, that raised him from the dead, and gave 
him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in 
God” (I Pet. 1: 18-21). The Apostle here empha- 
sizes the thought that the very belief which the disciples 
had in God was due to Christ, to the fact that God 
had raised him from the dead. The redemption which 
is their prized possession was not purchased save at 
the cost of the precious blood of the lamb. One who 
could write such words would never be accused of be- 
ing a believer in an abstract love of God which has 
never taken form save in a teacher of righteousness. 
To the mind of the writer of this Epistle, what Jesus 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 79 


did on the cross has made a profound difference in the 
relations between God and man. To him also the mani- 
festation of the Fatherly heart was a matter fore- 
known, it was part of the Father’s plan and was ac- 
complished according to that plan at the right moment. 

There is one other Petrine statement which com- 
pletes his Gospel. The Apostle is exhorting the dis- 
ciples to patience in suffering. Christ has suffered for 
us and set us an example that we should follow in His 
steps. It is in this connection that he gives expres- 
sion to the great New Testament truth that Jesus 
“bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, hav- 
ing died unto sins, might live unto righteousness” 
(I Pet. 2:24). In His death He has so dealt with 
sin that it is no longer a barrier to our life of right- 
eousness. And when he says this, he means that be- 
cause of this God has forgiven. If sin no longer is 
ours, 1f it has been borne by him, then the Father has 
forgiven it, He no longer holds it against us. That 
we as Christians are thus restored to the normal re- 
lations in the home of our Father is expressed in words 
which themselves are evidently an echo of the parable 
of the lost sheep, “For ye were going away like sheep; 
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop 
Oryourrsouls’ \ (1 Pet, 2:25). 

There are several objections which have been ad- 
vanced against the Gospel of Paul and in favor of the 
so-called Gospel as preached by Jesus. These objec- 
tions are supposed to be of such strength as to forever 
make impossible further belief in the historic position 
of the Church. We will but note them here and later 
will consider them more in detail. 


80 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


(1) It is objected that the Gospel of Paul rests upon 
the position that the New Testament is a unity, and 
that since it is forever impossible to discover just what 
that unity is, the Gospel itself must remain somewhat 
in the shadow. There can be no doubt but that it is 
true that the New Testament books were never written 
with the idea of being bound together in one volume. 
They are but fragments of a literature which must 
have been infinitely larger than the books we now pos- 
sess. In a word, the unity which the books now pos- 
sess 1s not inherent, it is factitious, artificial. We have 
thought of them as a unity only because of the action 
of the Church in bestowing upon them canonical au- 
thority. The age to which these books belong was 
the one in which the Church had no New Testament. 
They are of value, therefore, in being a guide to the 
manner in which the early Christians thought before 
there was a New Testament, but since they are frag- 
mentary they cannot be authoritative for us for a 
doctrine so final as that God mediates forgiveness to 
us only through the person of Jesus Christ. 

(2) A second objection, and one urged with greater 
force, is the one which we have already considered 
briefly in the former chapter, that this Gospel of Paul 
contradicts the teaching of Jesus in his parable of the 
prodigal son. Here God is shown to forgive freely and 
fully. He does it because he loves the son. The son 
has done nothing at all to placate the Father. All that 
was necessary for him to do to be received was to leave 
the swine and return in penitent spirit to the home of 
his Father. Now a gospel which makes necessary the 
life and death of Jesus before this forgiveness can be 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 81 


extended is evidently in direct antithesis to this 
teaching. 

(3) A third reaction against the Gospel of Paul is 
philosophical in nature. How can events in time have 
eternal significance? Jesus lived a human life. He was 
a human being in every sense of the term and His life 
and teachings were conditioned by events which are in- 
dissolubly connected with the time series. As the cen- 
turies roll on these events will become more and more 
shadowy and their meaning for us must decrease with 
this passage of the years. Christianity, therefore, to 
live must be divorced from the historic Jesus. It 
must be restated in a system of ideas which transcend 
time and the events in time. It must be independent of 
the facts, so-called, of the Gospel. But the Gospel of 
Paul and the Church is connected with the life and 
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The 
first appeal this Gospel makes is that of a theory de- 
rived from these mighty facts which are alleged to 
have taken place in Palestine. If the facts are re- 
moved the basis for the Gospel disappears. Hence, if 
the facts can be shown to be spurious there is no Gos- 
pel. It cannot, therefore, be an eternal Gospel if it 
rests upon such a flimsy basis. 

(4) The fourth objection is implicit in the other 
three, namely: that the love and reverence of the 
disciples of Christ for their Lord caused them to give 
Him a place in the whole plan which He does not de- 
serve. He was but a teacher of God; they have made 
Him God Himself. 

The conclusion from these objections is, then, that 
we must abandon, or, perhaps, to revert to the figure 


82 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


which we employed earlier in the discussion, we must 
go through all this invented position to the true Gospel, 
which is the Gospel preached by Jesus Himself and 
which we have recorded in the Gospels, or in the source 
of our present Gospels whatever that may have been. 
Let us ruthlessly cut through all the incrustations of 
the centuries; let us resolutely cast aside the rubbish 
which has been collecting through all the years, and 
let us rediscover Jesus, let us find again the peasant of 
Galilee; let us return to His simple teaching of love 
to God and man. 

But before we do this too speedily let us take ac- 
count of some of the limitations and imperfections of 
this attitude which are readily manifest when the whole 
matter is sifted carefully. There are some things in- 
volved in any such return to the so-called Gospel of 
Jesus which we may not be ready to countenance. 

(1) Not least among these objections is the fact 
that such a position sweeps away the convictions and 
faith of the Apostolic Church. It is but one step 
farther to say that it sweeps away the New Testament. 
It is a matter not requiring proof that the Gospel of 
Paul is the New Testament Gospel. The Christ whose 
sacrificial death has made a difference in the relations 
between man and God is the theme of the New Testa- 
ment from beginning to end. It is not the simple 
teacher of Galilee who caught the imagination of the 
early disciples but the Christ of God; the Christ so 
uniquely the Son of God that they accord to Him the 
worship which before they had given to the Father 
alone. To them He was all in all. Now we may be 
afflicted with the obsession that everything old is 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 83 


necessarily wrong. We may feel that because a thing 
belongs to the past it can have no validity for us now. 
In a word, we may throw the New Testament lightly 
away. That this can be done is evidenced by the fact 
that it is constantly being done and in the name of the 
purification of the Gospel itself. But it is open to se- 
rious question whether we can still call ourselves Chris- 
tian at all if we have abandoned that ground which 
~ was indisputably the only Christian ground known to 
the New Testament community. Professor Paterson 
very kindly speaks of those who hold this so-called 
Gospel of Jesus as having a diluted or attenuated form 
of Christianity. But when we deny the validity of 
that which every one knows was the foundation of 
all the early Christians believed and hoped for, can we 
still claim that we have any Christianity left? It 
would be probably nearer the truth, though not so kind 
perhaps, to say that the so-called Gospel of Jesus is a 
religion, a new religion, but it is not Christianity, since 
it has discarded that which gave foundation, form, and 
direction to the Christianity of the early Church. The 
whole question resolves itself into an inquiry into the 
mooted matter of authority in religion. What is the 
rule of faith? Shall we go to the Church, the In- 
fallible Book, the Inner Light or to reason? I do not 
believe there can be any question as to the authority 
in religion. If we are talking of religion in the large 
it must be certain that the reason must be the au- 
thority. We must accept as true or reject as false in 
accordance with our reason. But authority in Chris- 
tianity is a different matter. If we ask, “What is the 
form or standard for Christian doctrine’—then, we 


84 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


are in a different realm altogether. We cannot cast 
aside as so much trash those documents which from 
the earliest times have been considered authoritative by 
all men who love Christ as Lord. And this very thing, 
without contradiction, the so-called Gospel of Jesus 
does. We cannot so easily sever all connections with 
the past. “If we take out of what is, what has been, 
how much will we have left?” 

(2) The objection that since the forgiveness of the 
Father is mediated through Jesus it contradicts the 
teaching of the Lord in the parable of the prodigal 
son, is not well founded. It is more formidable on 
first sight than after a deeper probing. One is com- 
pelled to ask immediately just how much of the love 
of God would he know without Jesus. Is it only that 
Jesus teaches us to love God? Is it that He merely 
tells us of God as a loving Father and that because 
He loves us as a Father we ought to love Him as 
obedient and loving children? Are we indebted to 
Him in our knowledge of the love of God only as a 
student is indebted to a teacher? ‘There is something 
about such an attitude which fails to satisfy. It is 
assuming too much to think or to say that the parable 
of the prodigal boy is meant to teach all the Saviour 
would reveal about the love of God. We have al- 
ready noted that there is one vital element in that 
love, developed in the teaching of Jesus as a whole 
on the subject, which is entirely lacking—that of the 
seeking love of God. Would we not be justified in 
saying that since in the one the Master teaches that the 
Father fully and freely forgives all who come to Him 
that He is inconsistent when He teaches, in the story 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 85 


of the lost sheep, that God takes the initiative and goes 
after us? How is it that He is seeking us and yet 
that we must come to Him if we would have His for- 
giveness. No one would for a moment affirm that any 
such hypothetical inconsistency has any real being. And 
why would it be more difficult to believe that in the 
person of His unique Son the Father is seeking His 
wandering children; that in Him He is making known 
to them His love in demonstration. The Father must 
speak a language man can understand and this very 
thing He does in the life and death of His Son. 

It would be a rather difficult thing apart from Christ 
to induce the average man to believe that God is love. 
Most men are environed by circumstances which tend 
to impress them with the malevolent character of the 
Deity. Sickness and starvation and war on every 
hand. The terrors of nature with the suffering which 
man heaps upon man; all these things and a hundred 
others kindred do not make men believe that God 
loves them. Merely to tell men that God loves them, 
when they live in such a world as the one which now 
is our home, will not go far. But it has been done 
in Christ. In Christ men see for the first time a true 
demonstration of heavenly love. Paul runs through 
the whole list of things which are of the nature to 
make men disbelieve in the love of God and yet firmly 
avows that none of these, no matter how terrible 
they can be, can separate us from the love of God 
which is in Christ Jesus the Lord. In Christ he felt 
he had an assurance of God’s love so tremendous, so 
unshakable, that nothing could ever again induce him 
to disbelieve in the Father, asa Father. Those experi- 


86 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


ences which have broken the spirit and caused the soul 
to grow sick with despair were to him but the anvil on 
which a greater and more noble faith was beaten out. 
Through Christ they had a meaning divine, and in 
themselves were even greater evidence of the provi- 
dent love of God. God is love—but let us repeat, His 
love is not an abstraction. An abstract love may be 
possible for abstract men and women, but those of 
flesh and blood must. have a demonstration which they 
can comprehend. The teaching that God’s love is 
mediated through Christ does not contradict His teach- 
ing in the parable of the prodigal son; it completes it. 

(3) The objection that we cannot rest a doctrine so 
final as that of the forgiveness of God through Christ 
upon the factitious unity of the New Testament is one 
which need not concern us long. That, as regards the 
volume itself, the unity of the New Testament is arbi- 
trary, is undeniable. There has long been a debate as 
to the nature of the unity which it must possess. It is 
not a unity in the sense that God prepared a volume for 
us which would be divine in every particular. I sup- 
pose none to-day would make any such argument for 
it. Whatever else we may say about the unity of the 
New Testament it is certainly not fortuitous. There is 
a unity, and it is not a unity made possible purely by 
the art of the bookbinder. Regarding the New Testa- 
ment books “it would be truer to say that they gravi- 
tated toward each other in the course of the first cen- 
tury of the Church’s life, and imposed their unity on 
the Christian mind, than that the Church imposed on 
them by statute—for when ‘dogma’ is used in the ab- 
stract sense which contrasts it with fact or history, that 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 87 


is what it means—a unity to which they were inwardly 
strange. That they are at one in some essential respects 
is obvious. They have at least unity of subject: they 
are all concerned with Jesus Christ, and with the mani- 
festation of God’s redeeming love to men in Him. 
There is even a sense in which we may say there is 
a unity of authorship; for all the books of the New 
Testament are works of faith.’”? Surely Dr. Denney 
has sounded the keynote when he affirms that these 
books have a unity of subject. And this unity of 
subject is just the thing which brought them together. 
The subject was uppermost in the minds of the Church, 
it had made the Church; without it there never would 
have been a Christian community. Instead, therefore, 
of basing this final doctrine of the forgiving love of 
God as known in Jesus upon a so-called factitious unity 
of the New Testament Books, that very final doctrine 
itself brought the New Testament writings into exist- 
ence and also collated them into a unity. 

(4) The objection to the eternal significance of 
events in time, and thus to the basic facts of the life 
and teaching of Jesus out of which the Gospel grows, 
is one which can concern us more seriously than any 
of those to which we have thus far given attention. It 
is evident, without anything further being said on this 
point, that such an attitude invalidates all that has 
been accepted as foundational in Christianity. All we 
have known as Christianity is founded upon definite 
events which have transpired in time. Take these 
away from us and we feel lost; there is no firm ground 
for our feet. 

2“The Death of Christ,’ Denney, pp. 1, 2. 


88 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


The story of the gradual exclusion of Jesus from 
the Christian religion is too long for careful consid- 
eration here. Suffice it to say, that it began with a 
whittling away process until at last the outlines of the 
Master were so dim and shadowy that even the most 
radical of the new School were dissatisfied. We can 
really know nothing definite about Jesus. Even the 
record in Mark is so fragmentary and unsatisfactory 
and the problems it presents are so varied and baffling 
that we can never come to a true understanding of 
what He was. Let us, therefore, cut loose from the 
historical altogether and rise above it into the pure ideal 
of the Christian religion. Instead of the historic Jesus 
let us accept the ideal Christ. Let us get out from 
under the dead hand of the past and rise unburdened 
by its historical difficulties into a realm of pure ideal- 
ism. Realizing that God and man are indistinguish- 
ably one, that man’s life is the life of God, let us leave 
our sterile considerations of historical events which 
can never really have to do with our salvation anyway. 
Such an attitude is always that of the Hegelian or Neo- 
Hegelian School when it has to do with Christianity. 

There are several manifest weaknesses in any such 
theory of Christianity which readily suggest themselves 
when one probes the matter deeply. In the first place, 
it is nothing more nor less than bland assumption to 
affirm that if Christianity is historical, if it is indis- 
solubly linked with the time series, it cannot be final. 
And this very assumption is made. In popular form it 
states that Jesus was all right for His own day. What 
He taught had a validity for the time in which He 
lived. His teaching could satisfy the hunger of the 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 89 


hearts of His day. The moral life He exemplified 
would admirably suit the time in which He is cabined; 
it does not follow that He has said anything which is 
valid for us now. Ina word, Jesus was so limited by 
the fact that He was born into the life of one race, and 
one epoch, that He could not say anything eternal. 
Drews, in his study of “Christ Myths,” shows great 
impatience with anything in the past as having vital 
content for religion which has a present object. Since 
He is captive of His own time and conditions Jesus will 
be dimmer and dimmer as a character as the time series 
roll on. Farther and farther back into the centuries 
He will recede until we lose sight of Him altogether. 
“Yet one touch of experience breaks the spell. It is 
found that Jesus is past only as we refuse to think of 
Him. Let the supreme issues be taken up in moral 
earnest and at once He steps forward from the page 
of history, a tremendous and exacting reality. We 
cannot read His greatest works, be they of command 
or promise, without feeling that He is saying these 
things to us now ‘unter vier Augen’; that we are as 
much face to face with decision for or against Him as 
Zaccheus or Pilate. He gets home upon our conscience 
in a manner so final and inevitable—even when we do 
not wish to have anything to do with Him—that we 
see and know Him as present to the mind. Like 
any other reality He can be kept out of consciousness 
by the withdrawal of attention. But once He is en- 
tered, and, having entered, has shown us all things that 
ever we did, He moves out of the past into the field of 
immediate knowledge and takes the central place in the 
soul now and here. It is plain that at this point a living 


90 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


conscience about sin is crucial. Jesus, in short, will 
permanently be a historical externality to the man who 
will not admit Him to the moral sense.” * Thus, as 
theory, it might appear the only logical thing for the 
influence of Jesus, limited by His own time and condi- 
tions, to be an ever-decreasing influence, but this theory 
goes to pieces on the rocks of experience. Instead of a 
diminishing influence He is an ever-increasing influence 
and power in the world. 

The objection to the eternal significance of the events 
of Christ’s life, and death, and resurrection, also rests 
upon a false view of history as such. Those who hold 
this view generally consider history as a lantern-screen 
upon which there is constantly being thrown the pic- 
tures of facts which are independently real. As such, 
therefore, history has no real being at all. But it is 
far more correct to say that it is “rather a workshop 
and laboratory in which fact itself comes to be.” With 
this view of it, we can understand why it is that the 
history of religion has been one long series of great 
personalities. In other words, God through men, in 
the field of history, has been bringing great things to 
pass. But it has been through men. It has not been 
through systems of ideas, abstract in nature and ab- 
stractly mediated, but through great truths incarnate 
in great souls. This has been the manner of revelation 
always. Thus great ideas have risen to conquering 
power in a Luther, a Wesley, a Calvin and from their 
labors have gone forward the greatest and most glo- 
rious movements for God. How clearly has Pro- 
fessor Mackintosh stated it: “One of the really im- 

3 “Aspects of Christian Belief,” H. R. Mackintosh, p. 13. 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 91 


portant truths to which religious people have wakened 
up, freshly and eagerly, in the last hundred years is 
this, that God never reveals Himself to men by fos- 
tering in their minds the acceptance of certain theo-' 
logical propositions which can be got by heart and 
understood by the detached onlooker; He reveals Him- 
self through facts of history, and above all through 
great personalities and their spiritual experience.” * 
How much of the Bible deals with the histories of 
great men? ‘Take out Abraham, Moses, Saul, Paul, 
Peter, etc., not to mention the Master Himself, and 
how much have you left? It is one prolonged record 
of human life and the revelation of God in that life, 
of human experiences and adventures in faith. 

It is surely unnecessary to inquire for the reason why 
this method has always been employed. How many 
would be saved if they were forced to think their way 
through the mazes of abstract spiritual thought. Even 
those most profound in their thought processes are 
more influenced by truth in personality than in any 
other manner. We can understand truth divine when 
we see it in the lives of men around us. When God 
so speaks to us He uses an intelligible language. With 
this method we are familiar in our everyday lives. 
Courage and patience and love are revealed to us con-. 
stantly through friends and loved ones. It is not at 
all strange then that when God would reveal His great- 
est love, His forgiving grace, that He should use a 
method which men could understand because one with 
which they are familiar. 

There is one other aspect of this whole question 

4“The Divine Initiative,’ H. R. Mackintosh, p. 41. 


92 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


without at least a casual notice of which this inquiry 
would be incomplete. It is philosophical in nature and 
lies right at the basis of the matter. Just what is God’s 
relation to man after all? Is it static, immutable, or 
can it be expressed in personal categories? To put it 
in other words, Is reality complete, frozen, unchange- 
able in its content, or is it dynamic or kinetic? Is there 
possibility of an increase in it, or is history merely 
a silver screen upon which we are daily seeing the pic- 
tures of those realities which can never be increased 
since they are fixed and final? We cannot blink the 
fact that if we are to interpret history as a field in which 
God is bringing great things to be, then we must be- 
lieve that there is possibility of an increase in the con- 
tent of reality, that it is not frozen and fixed forever. 
Yea, more, in Jesus Christ we find that very increase 
in moral and spiritual reality. Professor Mackintosh 
asks and answers the question in his usual brilliant 
manner. “Has the cross any casual bearing—-not on 
the originative and fontal love of God, but—on His 
present gracious attitude to the guilty? Or shall we 
apply also at this point the monistic principle that 
nothing real ever moves, that all happenings are ipso 
facto appearance and not reality? To me it seems that 
if history is the fruitful sphere and nidus of being, 
if it is this, and not merely an earthly representation 
and picturing of eternal truths—of validities, that is, 
which hold good irrespectively of all that may become 
in time and space—then we are obliged to think of sal- 
vation as deriving reality, acquiring substantial and ef- 
fective existence, through concrete events in time. 
Christ, that is, does more than unveil a relation already 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 93 


posited by the definition of Divinity and Humanity; He 
once for all develops a new relation at great cost. 
True, this argument 1s worthless if God is not in fact 
antagonistic to sin, if, because He is love unspeak- 
able, He cannot be wrath as well. But to say so is to 
disregard the voice of the instructed Christian con- 
science, which tells us plainly that we question God’s 
anger at sin only because we are so little angry at it 
ourselves.” It is not too much to say that the 
Christian attitude must be that salvation is of such 
nature that it can come through history, nay, that it 
must come in this manner, and that it could not pos- 
sibly come in ary other. Salvation is of such nature 
that it can only come from within, it could not be im- 
posed upon man from above and when we say this we 
acknowledge all that the facts of the Gospel may mean. 
Jesus was God working within the race of men, by 
life, and death, and resurrection, not only disclosing 
the forgiving love of the Father; not alone making 
known God’s relation to the sinful, but actually making 
a change in that relation. This is what we mean when 
we say that the events of Christianity can and do have 
eternal significance. It is the only manner in which 
divine truth has ever had such significance for man 
because the only manner of revelation which he can 
understand. Divorce Christianity from its basic facts 
and it is difficult to see how what remains could still 
be called Christianity. 

(5) There is one other objection to the so-called 
Gospel of Jesus as opposed to the Gospel of Paul 
which can be noted here in but two or three sentences. 
It deserves a far more careful exposition. The theory 


94 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


sweeps away the self-consciousness of Jesus concerning 
His mission in the world. The claim that the worship 
of Jesus arose subsequent to His death and resurrec- 
tion is not well founded, for all the way through the 
Gospels we are in contact with this same attitude to- 
ward Him. And there is evidence, which is beyond 
doubt, that Jesus Himself accepted this attitude on the 
part of His disciples. Professor Denney ° has made 
a powerful argument, and in my own way of looking 
at it an unanswerable one for this self-consciousness 
of our Lord. In a word, he contends that Jesus ac- 
cepted this attitude toward Himself as Christ and Lord 
and commended it. Not only so, but He thought Him- 
self to be the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, the 
King of Israel. Those who advocate the so-called 
Gospel of Jesus fail to account for all the facts. While 
He does teach us to love God and to believe in the after 
life, He also teaches us to believe in Himself as one 
who is uniquely the Son of the Father. Can we accept 
one side of His teaching and ignore the other? Even 
if it should be admitted that Jesus did not claim for 
Himself this unique position; yet He won and accepted 
it for Himself. Had the disciples been mistaken in it 
surely the candor of our Lord would have forced Him 
to rebuke them. He did this on other occasions. He 
did not allow them to hold false views on other things 
without telling them of their error and warning them 
against it: would He have left unrebuked such a faith 
as this had it been without basis in fact? His silence, 
if He were silent, on this would of itself have been 
approbation. 


5 See “Jesus and the Gospel,’ Denney. 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 95 


(6) There is one more objection to the effort to 
thrust Jesus back into His own time and hold Him 
there, the prisoner of His own age. Such a view of the 
Gospel cuts its moral nerve. There is but one Gospel 
in the world now; and there has been but one through 
which we can evangelize; that is the one in which Christ 
is given the central place in God’s whole scheme of for- 
giveness. The most damning thing which can be said 
against diluted Christianity is that it does not work. 
And those who hold it now and yet try to remain 
Christian are recognizing the fact that only as it can 
be made to work will it live. There never has been 
in the history of Christianity an evangelist who did not 
believe with all his heart and soul in the Gospel of the 
Son of God who died for our sins and was raised 
for our justification. It is only as we believe in the 
facts of the Gospel that we can save men, for “when 
we lose contact with the facts we lose the power to 
evangelize.” To lose contact with the facts is to 
launch out into a new realm and to cut all connection 
with the great stream of believing life through all the 
Christian centuries. It is a matter of experience that 
the revelation of Christianity to our own hearts has 
been made through personalities, and uniquely the per- 
sonality of Jesus. The New Testament is the record 
of that great personality and is handed on to us through 
the personalities of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, 
and Paul. And we have known of the great truths of 
the Gospel because of the men and women whose faith 
we have seen as we come into the world. A Christian 
mother taught us concerning the Master. A Christian 
teacher led us in the new paths of faith. The care and 


96 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


leadership of the Church of God has made us to know 
Jesus. As we have known it, evangelization has gone 
forward through great personalities. And these who 
brought the word of life to us believed in Jesus as 
uniquely the Son of God. They did not bring us to 
decision through the so-called Gospel of the peasant 
teacher of Galilee but through the Gospel of a crucified 
and risen Lord whose sacrificial death upon the cross 
has made a place for us in the forgiving love of the 
Father. 

There is an interesting thought in this connection 
which Professor Mackintosh advances with telling ef- 
fect. The diluted Gospel of Jesus might satisfy this 
or that individual, but there is only one for a Church. 
There is only one upon which a Church can be built. 
This is to repeat what we have already been saying, 
for to build New Testament Churches is to evangelize. 
And it is significant that “you cannot erect a church 
which will attain any appreciable success in building 
the Kingdom of God on earth, throughout the long 
generations anywhere, save on the basis of faith in the 
crucified and risen Lord. Christian history makes that 
fairly clear.” © Most men will acknowledge this to be 
true, but some will ask, ‘“Why then is it that there are 
individuals who seemingly are successful and satisfied 
with the more attentuated Gospel?’ There are such, 
and they have even banded themselves together into 
societies which they call churches, who do not accord 
to Jesus the place which the New Testament and the 
believing love of the Church has given him and they 
seem to get along well in their Christian lives. Grant 

6 “The Divine Initiative,” Mackintosh, p. 94. 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 97 


this to the full; but would they do this if they were 
not surrounded by more healthy and dynamic forms 
of faith? Is there record of any such so-called Church 
being builded in a place where no other form of Chris- 
tianity has ever been known? Has any such body ever 
gone out into the untracked jungle, among the child 
races of the world, and builded a house for God? Only 
under such conditions as these could any real test be 
made. It is suggestive, at least, that such diluted forms 
of Christianity have persisted only where they were 
surrounded by a virile faith. ‘Their experience is all 
the time being fed from larger and deeper springs out- 
side themselves; impulses and energies accrue to them 
from the corporate whole; they find daily in their as- 
sociates more striking instances of brave belief and 
therefore better reasons for believing; the atmosphere 
of a more abundant life is around them as something 
they breathe and assimilate.” * 

The knowledge which we ourselves have had of the 
forgiving love of God, the joy which has come to us 
because we have experienced it, is ours because we have 
known the Church which is a body of men and women 
banded together for God and His Son, because they 
have been forgiven. It is notable that those who hold 
the attenuated Gospel think but little of God’s for- 
giveness because they, too, often have had little con- 
cern about the necessity for it. Generally a declining 
faith in Christ has gone hand in hand with a declining 
sense of the sinfulness of sin. We would not imply 
that those who hold this view are not often good men, 
but it is not going beyond the bounds of caution to say 

7“The Divine Initiative,’ Mackintosh, p. 94. 


98 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


that they explain the presence of sin in the world in 
other ways than those given in the Revelation. They 
have not only diluted the teaching concerning Christ; 
they have also diluted that concerning sin. But it is 
true, and this surely has foundational bearing upon 
the whole matter of evangelism, that we know of that 
which the Gospel universally teaches to be the most 
precious possession of the Christian man—the for- 
giveness of the Father, only as we have known it 
through forgiven men. “No man has ever reached 
this amazing conviction of the Father’s pardon in 
Christ or perceived it to be the most blessed and eman- 
cipating thing in the world except by living beside 
those who themselves were forgiven, and who let him 
see it.” 

(7) There is yet one other objection which in itself 
is of such character that it destroys the effectiveness 
of any argument which can be made in favor of this at- 
tentuated Gospel. This is to be found in the fact that 
it makes no place for what Dr. Mackintosh calls “The 
Divine Initiative.” We have already discovered that 
the setting forth of the love of God in the parable of 
the prodigal son is incomplete without that of the lost 
sheep. It is a glorious revelation to the hungry heart 
that God loves the sinner, and that He is anxiously 
awaiting his return to filial fellowship and to the pro- 
tecting care of the Father’s house. This goes far be- 
yond anything man had clearly known before the com- 
ing of the Master to the world. And it is this that He 
reveals; we know it because we know Him. This has 
been our argument all the way through. But this is 
not all He reveals. He goes on, in the parable which — 


THE GROUND OF FORGIVENESS 99 


we have just noted, to reveal the still more glorious 
fact that not only does God want us to repent; not 
only is He ready to freely and fully forgive us; but 
greater still He is actually in the world now seeking us 
that He may bring us to salvation. The greatest 
heights to which Jesus conducts us in the revelation of 
the forgiving love of God are those in which He makes 
known the fact that the Father takes the initiative in 
our salvation and bears the cost of it. And this He 
does in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the demonstra- 
tion of the divine initiative. God is here, personally 
to lead us in the way of life. But this sublime truth 
is entirely left out in the so-called Gospel of Jesus. 
There can be no room for it if the Lord is only a 
teacher of righteousness. It is too often true that 
those who hold this view are more interested in man’s 
search for God than in God’s search for man. That 
man is hunting for God always is admitted, but the dis- 
tinctive thing about Christianity is the teaching that 
God is everywhere hunting for man, at every step origi- 
nating religion, taking the first step that we may take 
the second. And it is this we see in Jesus or we do not 
see Him at all. What else could one see in the Cross 
than the love of the Father which would go to the 
farthest extremity to bring back the wandering son? 
We cannot but come once more to the question be- 
fore we have done with this study, “If we reject all 
that has been accepted as Christian, all that has worn 
the name of Christian, all that has been considered in 
New Testament times and from those times until the 
present hour as Christian, can we justly claim to stand 
on Christian ground?” We have already considered 


100 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


the fact that to accept the diluted so-called Christianity 
which places Jesus in the same position as it would 
accord to other teachers like Socrates, Buddha, or Mo- 
hammed, is in reality to throw the New Testament 
away altogether. When those who do this in the name 
of its purging and for the purpose of reforming Chris- 
tianity get through with their task they are confronted 
with the not at all comforting fact that they have no 
Christianity left to reform. If we then cast away the 
New Testament and dethrone the Christ, can we call 
the poor remnant, which remains to us in the so-called 
ideal Christianity, Christian at all? It seems to me 
that we are face to face with these alternatives: either 
Christianity as it is revealed in the Christ and the 
New Testament or a new religion. And if we are to 
have a new religion let us also have the courage to 
call it so; let us not misname it Christian when it has 
lost all vital connection with that which has by right 
worn the name. That this is not likely to be done is 
evidenced by the fact that with every opportunity to do 
so it has accomplished so little. The Church of Christ, 
on the other hand, continues to go forward joyfully 
and by leaps and bounds in her work of saving men, 
and her message is that of the forgiving love of God 
as demonstrated in the life and death and resurrection 
of His holy Son Jesus, 


CHAPTER III 
THE APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 


“But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love 
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead 
through our trespasses, made us alive together with 
Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us 
up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heav- 
enly places, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come 
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in 
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus: for by grace have 
ye been saved through faith; and that not of your- 
selves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no 
man should glory” (Eph. 2: 4-9). 

In the last chapter we devoted ourselves to a study 
of the ground of our forgiveness. In these words of 
Paul we note his affirmation that God’s grace has been 
made known unto us; that this manifestation has been 
made in Christ Jesus who is the Father’s love objecti- 
fied. We have already discovered that apart from 
such tangible manifestation we do not know the 
Father’s love. Without Christ we find that we have 
no hold on God. The whole study revolved around 
the part which God takes in our salvation. We noted 
that in salvation He takes the initiative; He is actually 
seeking men, and in the seeking shuns not to take 
upon Himself the awful cost of their salvation. In 
our present study we wish to consider man’s part, the 


human response to what God has done in Christ. In 
101 


102 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


the verses above, Paul says that that response is 
through faith. By grace are we saved, but it is through 
faith. “Faith and grace are thus correlative terms and 
are the pivots of Paul’s whole teaching. Grace is the 
principle in God which initiates and completes the 
work of salvation; and faith is the act in which man 
appropriates it.”’* Professor Stevens has thus pre- 
sented clearly our present program of study. I am not 
sure that I can go with him when he talks about faith 
as “the act’ in which we appropriate forgiveness. 
More of this later. His statement of the manner in 
which we know the grace of the Father, and make 
what that grace has made possible our own, is indis- 
putable. It is to this side of it, our part, that we wish 
to direct our thinking for this hour. 


I. IT IS THE UNIVERSAL NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 
THAT THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS IS APPROPRI- 
ATED THROUGH FAITH 


The grace of God, as we have already discovered, is 
the foundation upon which our forgiveness is based— 
it is the fountain out of which that forgiveness flows 
like a healing stream to the sinful soul, but through 
faith we take all its healing power into our hearts. 
“Grace is the free and undeserved kindness of God 
which freely gives us what we need; and faith is the 
free and active acceptance of that which grace pre- 
sents. Free grace is the source of salvation, and faith 
receiving the gift is the means of salvation to us.” ? 

It is the familiar teaching of Paul that we are jus- 


1“The Pauline Theology,” Stevens, pp. 261, 262. 
2“An Outline of Christian Theology,” W. N. Clarke, p. 404. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 103 


tified or forgiven by faith. Many passages come 
readily to mind. To the Romans he writes, “Being 
therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also 
we have had our access into this grace wherein we 
stand; and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” 
(Rom. 5:1, 2). It would be difficult to frame a sen- 
tence in which the place of Christ could stand out in 
greater emphasis. It is through Christ that we have 
peace with God, it is through Him that we have 
justification, and it is through our faith in Him that 
we have thus been brought into all the blessings which 
the grace of God has so freely and fully made possible 
for us. In his vigorous protest against the teaching 
that one could be saved by an observance of the law, 
he reminds the Galatians that they have not been thus 
justified, and that they have no right to continue in 
sin, for “knowing that a man is not justified by the 
works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, 
even we believed on Christ Jesus that we might be 
justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works 
of the law” (Gal. 2:16). In the next chapter of 
the same letter, he once again powerfully sets forth 
his position that forgiveness is mediated to us through 
Christ, and that through our faith in Him it is ours. 
“But before faith came, we were in ward under the 
law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards 
be revealed. So that the law is become our tutor to 
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by 
faith. But now that faith is come, we are no longer 
under a tutor. For we are all sons of God, through 
faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 23-26). Here he glow- 


104 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


ingly states the two blessings which are ours as Chris- 
tians because of the grace of God, and because of our 
faith in Christ; we are forgiven or justified, and we 
become Sons of God when thus we are received back 
into the Father’s love. ‘ 

In Peter’s statement at the so-called Council of 
Jerusalem we have the work of faith stated in other 
terms. He reminds his brethren of his visit to the 
household of Cornelius at which time the Father made 
choice of him to bring the good news to the Gentiles. 
It was through his mouth that they should hear the 
word of the Gospel and believe. And because God 
knew their hearts, He gave unto them the same gift 
as He had bestowed so freely upon the disciples on 
the day of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And 
THe made no distinction between the disciples and them, 
“cleansing their hearts by faith” (Acts 15: 7-9). Here 
the whole process of conversion is considered as a 
cleansing, and the name of that whole process, from 
the human side, is ‘‘faith.”’ We do not wish to antici- 
pate our argument on the nature of faith, but if the 
Scriptural definition of the heart is taken, there is in 
this passage a strong hint as to the nature of that by 
which we appropriate the forgiveness of the Father. 
It is significant that the Scriptural and the scientific 
definitions of the heart coincide. The heart, as re- 
garded in the Word of God, is the intellect, the emo- 
tions or sensibilities, and the will. If, then, that heart 
is cleansed by faith, faith purifies the intellect, the emo- 
tions and the will. It is not the magic act which some 
have erroneously taught it to be, but rather a process 
of cleansing by an attitude of the whole soul to God. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 105 


It is, however, sufficient to note here that this teaching 
agrees with that of Paul, that through faith we come 
to forgiveness, or, to state the same truth in other 
words, “the heart is cleansed.” 

But there is another thought which must engross 
our attention, if we would understand clearly just what 
the Apostle teaches concerning the blessing resultant 
from faith. It is the claim that the righteousness which . 
he now has as a Christian is a righteousness which has 
in some manner come to him through faith. He ex- 
claims joyously, “I count all things to be loss for the 
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: 
for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do 
count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and 
be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine 
own, even that which is of the law, but that which 
is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is 
from God by faith” (Phil. 3:8, 9). It is not our 
purpose to become entangled here in the discussion 
of the term, the righteousness of God (7 tod Oe0d 
duxatoovvy ). There can be no doubt that, although 
the meaning of the phrase in Paul’s mind is hard to 
define with precision, the righteousness which he means 
is a righteousness which comes from God. It is not 
one which is worked up within us by ourselves and out 
of our own resources. Neither does Paul mean that 
this righteousness is purely an imputed righteousness, 
one without real meaning. It is not that a man is only 
considered righteous because of his faith; he is right- 
eous. Through faith he has come into the forgiven life 
in which true righteousness begins. “Faith is sur- 
render, trust, receptiveness. It is not merely a condi- 


106 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


tion of being pronounced righteous; it is the actual en- 
trance upon the righteous life, because it is the begin- 
ning of glad and loyal obedience. Salvation is by faith, 
because faith is the acceptance of Christ’s righteous- 
ness, not through imputation, but by actual participa- 
tion in it through vital union with him. Christ’s right- 
eousness, that is, his life and spirit, is appropriated in 
faith; and the man whom God, in the sentence of jus- 
tification, pronounces righteous is really so, not in the 
sense of being morally perfect, but in the sense of hav- 
ing begun the life of real righteousness—the life which 
is well pleasing to God.” * These things we have been 
saying before, for we have been in contact with this 
truth in our consideration of the relation between for- 
giveness and sanctification. It is only the other side 
of the fact, that this righteousness which is the result 
of forgiveness, comes to us through our faith in Christ, 
which concerns us here. The righteousness from God, 
that which has God as its source, comes through faith 
in Christ Jesus. 


II. LET US NOW CONSIDER THE NATURE OF THAT 
FAITH THROUGH WHICH FORGIVENESS IS AP- 
PROPRIATED 


The Older Divines were wont to divide faith into 
various forms. They considered it to be of four kinds, 
—historical faith, temporary faith, the faith of mir- 
acles, and justifying or saving faith. Without say- 
ing more about it, it is sufficient to note in passing 
that this division, on the face of it, seems to be an 


3“The Pauline Theology,’ Stevens, p. 269. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 107 


arbitrary one. It smacks of pure speculation. Faith 
of the New Testament order is faith. These kinds 
may really be engrossed into one, and that one is the 
faith which saves. 

1, The nature of the faith which appropriates the 
free forgiveness of the Father may be considered 
negatively. 

(a) Appropriating faith is decidedly not mere be- 
lief. This is exactly what the majority of men have 
thought it to be. If one accept as true the revealed 
life of Jesus, if one assent heartily to the Biblical nar- 
ratives, then that one has faith. By a shrewd act of 
believing, we may inherit eternal life. There is some 
undefinable merit attaching to the mere act of accept- 
ing as true the story of the life, suffering, death, burial, 
and resurrection of Jesus. There are a number of in- 
stances in which the word “‘belief”’ is placed for the 
whole process which in the New Testament is called 
faith; but of itself belief is never faith. The Philip- 
pian jailer is told to “believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ” and he shall be saved and his house (Acts 
16:30, 31). Paul tells the Romans that if a man “shall 
believe that God hath raised him from the dead” he 
shall be saved. But in these, as well as other refer- 
ences, the beginning act of assenting to the truth of the 
story of Christ is placed for the whole process of faith, 
in which Christ is accepted and what He has done is 
made the sinner’s own. In each case the beginning step 
is followed by that which gives to faith its saving 
power. Had those addressed merely believed that God 
had raised Christ from the dead as an interesting fact, 
but one that made no difference in their attitude to- 


108 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


ward God and divine things, then assuredly their be- 
lief would have meant nothing at all. It would have 
been only an intellectual assent to the fact of Christ. 
It is unfortunate that the English word “faith” has no 
cognate verb. It is dependent for such companionship 
upon the dissimilar word “believe.” Dr. Clarke ap- 
preciates this difference and says, “If the second syl- 
lable of the word “‘confide”’ were in use as a separate 
word, so that one could say, ‘I fide in Christ,’ we 
should be richer for the purpose of expression; but 
as it is we have only one word for more than one 
idea. The consequence is that it is easy to confound 
faith with inferior forms of believing.” * It is well 
to remember, as the difference between the two words, 
that belief is elementary, it is but the beginning stage 
of faith; faith is the whole process in which, because 
of what we believe, we appropriate to our own needy 
hearts the blessings which the grace of God has made 
possible for us. 

It is interesting to note how Alexander Campbell 
mixes the two words in one of his brief definitions of 
faith. ‘To admit testimony to be true is in the sacred 
style equivalent to believing it; for he that believeth 
the testimony of God has simply ‘set to his seal that 
God is true.” Thus far Mr. Campbell is right. Be- 
lief is the credence of testimony,—the assent to the 
truth of the facts of the Gospel as they are revealed 
in the New Testament. But we cannot go with him 
in the next statement in the same connection. “Faith, 
indeed, is always but the conviction of the truth of 
testimony, whether that testimony be human or divine. 

4“An Outline of Christian Theology,” Clarke, p. 404. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 109 


To be convinced that any testimony or report is true 
is to believe it; to be convinced that it is not true is 
to disbelieve it; not to be able to decide is to doubt it.” ® 
This latter statement would have been beyond dispute 
had Mr. Campbell substituted the word “belief” for the 
first word of the sentence. Belief is all that he here 
says it is; faith is more than he defines it to be. Out 
of justice to him, however, it should be remembered 
that in practice he did go further in his definition of 
faith, To him faith meant repentance and baptism, 
and all other acts of obedience to the Lord Christ. It 
did not stop with the mere credence of the divine testi- 
mony. 

(b) The faith which appropriates forgiveness is not 
a faith in the Bible. Thousands of men were being 
saved by their faith many years before the New Testa- 
ment was completed. It is not amiss to say that the 
New Testament itself arose out of the faith of the 
Church of Christ. The faith in a person, the divine 
person, which had made them what they were, gave 
birth to the divine book which now tells us of Him. 
There are some now who are in grave danger of be- 
coming Bibliolatrists; they worship the book rather 
than the One revealed in the book. One such once 
made the comment, “I am so glad that we have only the 
Bible as our creed.”’ But the Bible is never the creed 
of the “Christian only.” His creed could never be a 
book, even though it be the Book of God. The creed 
of the Church of Christ is its foundation. This is 
true of any creed. What a man believes politically is 
the foundation of his political life, the basis of his 

5 “Christian Baptism,’ Alexander Campbell, pp. 64, 65. 


110 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


political actions. What one believes religiously is like- 
wise the ground of his religious life. The creed of 
the Christian is Christ Himself. It is not that we be- 
lieve, for our salvation, in theologies about Christ. We 
rest our hope in Him. The truth cannot be better 
stated than in the familiar words of Paul, “For other 
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:11). 

While our faith is-in a person and not in a book, 
yet we have great reverence for the Book. Without 
it we could not know of Him upon whom our faith 
rests. It is the medium through which He is made 
known to us now. And it is well, indeed, that such 
medium exists. Were we dependent alone upon the 
lives of Christian men for our knowledge of Christ, 
how distorted would be our view of Him. When we 
grow weary of the imperfect manner in which Chris- 
tians make Him known to the world, what a relief it is 
to revel in the clear, beautiful outlines of His char- 
acter as it is pictured in the New Testament. Were 
we to state it in a sentence, could we put it better than 
to say that Christ as He is revealed in the New Testa- 
ment is the creed of the Church which He founded; 
He, thus made known, is the object of faith. 

(c) The faith which appropriates the forgiveness 
which the love of the Father has so freely and fully 
made possible, is not the faith in that which makes 
parties and divisions in the Church of Christ. Our 
day is one in which the subject of Christian Unity is 
of supreme importance. Devout men of every denomi- 
nation are energetically advocating a return to the prim- 
itive unity of the household of faith. Great confer- 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 111 


ences are frequently being held in which this question 
is frankly faced. And is it not well since we are so 
interested in the way in which the lost unity of Christ’s 
Church may be restored, that we note the fact that 
there is no saving power in those things which divide 
us? There is but one way to reunion: a return to the 
revelation concerning that which alone is essential to 
man’s salvation. The faith which appropriates forgive- 
ness is not a faith in this theology or that creedal inter- 
pretation of the Gospel of Christ. There never has 
been any saving power in any peculiar tenet which has 
divided one group of Christians from all others who 
honor the Lord Christ. The faith which saves, the 
faith which appropriates salvation, is something which 
is the priceless possession of all evangelical followers 
of the Master. It is faith in Him. Professor Mack- 
intosh, after discussing the fact that in all creeds the 
speculative element has so crept in that to the beginner 
in the adventure of faith their statements would be 
puzzling in the extreme, concludes, “The New Testa- 
ment, as usual, is wiser when to the seeker’s question 
it returns the answer : ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and thou shalt be saved.’ That is, it goes on the clear 
and sufficient principle that what alone can awaken and 
satisfy the faith of sinful man is a Person. Instead 
of the creed it speaks of Jesus Christ.” ° 

(d) Appropriating faith is not a faith to which 
salvation is attached as an arbitrary thing. God has 
demanded faith of the sinner, not as a condition which 
he has arbitrarily imposed and which might as well 
have been something else. He has demanded faith be- 


6 “The Divine Initiative,’ Mackintosh, p. 70. 


112 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


cause it is the only thing that can meet the demands 
of the situation in which the sinner finds himself when 
he is confronted by the sin-bearing love of God in 
Christ. And surely it is just here that all the ques- 
tions we have been discussing relative to infused right- 
eousness are resolved. We may talk about forensic 
forgiveness and vital union with Christ and all the 
other problems which any exhaustive consideration of 
the whole subject of: New Testament forgiveness may 
suggest, but after all, many of the very questions 
would be evacuated of much of their significance if it 
were not for the fact that they are builded upon the 
idea that faith is something which is really an arbi- 
trary requirement of the Lord. And the result, evi- 
dent to all, is that faith thus becomes in itself a work 
of merit by which salvation is earned. The consequent 
artificiality between faith and salvation has thus been 
emphasized as impossible of explanation because of the 
fact that they have no “natural, vital, or organic con- 
nection with each other.” But faith is not this. Dr. 
Denney well argues that the whole perplexing field of 
theology in which these questions rise repeatedly is 
simplified and cleared when we see “‘that there is noth- 
ing arbitrary in faith, and that it is not so much a con- 
dition upon which salvation is by the will of God made 
to depend, as the one natural and inevitable way in 
which the salvation of God, present in Christ, is and 
must be accepted by men. When a man has heard the 
story of Jesus and the Gospel interpretation of it— 
when he takes in the truth that what before him on 
the cross is the revelation of a love in God deeper 
and stronger than sin, entering into all that sin means 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 113 


for him and taking the burden of it in all its dreadful 
pressure upon Himself, yet clinging to him through it 
all—what is he to do? What does the situation re- 
quire of him? Is it legitimate or becoming for him 
to say that such a revelation of love is unnecessary for 
him or irrelevant for his requirements? To say so 
would be to say that he had no sin, or none with which 
he did not feel competent to deal without such aid. 
Is it legitimate for him to say that such a revelation of 
love is too much, and to attempt negotiations with God 
on the assumption that further consideration might 
discover a way of salvation costing less to God and not 
so overwhelming to the sinner? Or can he surround 
the word of reconciliation with conditions of his own, 
and refuse to take the benefit of God’s reconciling love, 
till he has guarantees that it will not be abused, whether 
the guarantees are supposed to be given in sufficient re- 
pentance for past sins or in sufficient amendment of 
life for the future? All these suppositions are impos- 
sible. If aman with the sense of sin on him sees what 
Christ on His cross means, there is only one thing for 
him to do—one thing which is inevitably demanded 
in that moral situation: to abandon himself to the sin- 
bearing love which appeals to him in Christ, and to do 
so unreservedly, unconditionally, and forever. This 
is what the New Testament means by faith.” * In this 
extensive quotation from the great Scottish theologian, 
we have the very marrow of the whole matter set be- 
fore us. It gives rebuke to us who have, even in our 
preaching, all too often placed the demand for faith 
before our hearers as though it were an arbitrary con- 


7 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,” Denney, pp. 289, 290. 


114 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


dition which, if once complied with, made salvation for- 
ever secure. Faith, under the moral conditions with 
which we are surrounded when we see the cross, is the 
only right thing. And he who thus throws himself 
upon this love which Christ reveals is right. The 
rightness is not a commodity infused or imputed: the 
sinner is right, he has received the reconciliation (Rom. 
5:11), he is indeed reconciled. 

(e) The faith universally required in the New 
Testament is not an act of belief by which we merit 
forgiveness. 

To discuss this proposition is really but to continue 
from another slant our consideration of the position 
which we have just been following. We cannot earn 
salvation or forgiveness by accepting as true, in the 
intellectual act of belief, the Gospel of Jesus. Without 
doubt one of the worst of popular errors is that of 
relying on the manner of believing for salvation. If 
a man does not receive the feeling which so long has 
been mistaken for faith he is often told that there is 
evidently something wrong in the manner in which he 
has believed. Thus faith has been made in itself a 
work, and yet those who are guilty of doing this thing 
are loudest in their condemnation of a salvation which 
is by works. Campbell is correct when he affirms that 
salvation, and consequently forgiveness, “is through 
faith, and not on account of faith, as though there was 
in faith some intrinsic merit.’’ It is not in the act of 
believing nor in the manner of it, but in that which 
we believe, and in the difference which such belief 
makes in our lives and in our whole attitude toward 
God, which is vital. And it is only in this, too, that 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 115 


the blessing of the Father can be made our very own. 

2. Having found what faith is not, we are now 
prepared to face it positively and to discover, if we can, 
just what it really is. 

(a) Whatever else it may be, it is decidedly faith 
in Jesus Christ asa person. This is the universal New 
Testament position. A dozen verses flash into con- 
sciousness from which we may choose at random. 
Paul says, “We are all children of God, through faith 
in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26). He reminds Timothy 
that from babyhood he has known the sacred writings 
which are able to make him wise unto salvation 
“through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (II Tim. 
3:15). He exhorts the Colossians, “As therefore ye 
have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, 
rooted and builded in him, and established in your 
faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in thanks- 
giving’ (Col. 2:6, 7). To the Colossian brethren, 
whatever faith might be, its object was Christ Jesus. 
The writer of the Hebrew Epistle accepted without 
reservation this view of Paul, for he exhorts those to 
whom he writes to run with patience the great Chris- 
tian race, laying aside every weight and the sin which 
so easily besets those who run for God, “looking unto 
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith’ (Heb. 
12:2). In our study of the ground of forgiveness 
we found ourselves, in the New Testament, every- 
where in contact with this idea. Jesus is the object of 
faith. It is always the same, whether we turn to Paul, 
or John, or Peter; faith to them is faith in a Person, 
and that Person is the Lord Jesus Christ. 

One of the characteristics of the Rationalistic The- 


116 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


ology has been its attempt to elevate faith entirely above 
the personal realm. We will never be able to solve the 
problems which are presented to us by the study of our 
Christian documents. They are confessedly fragmen- 
tary. They constantly contradict each other, until it is 
a task utterly beyond our power to construct a life of 
Christ which will be above criticism. Let us get out of 
the historical and away from the problems which arise 
from the connection*of Christianity with the life of 
the historical Jesus, and let us soar into the realm of 
pure truth. Thus would some of the modernistic writ- 
ers solve all the problems which our historic Chris- 
tianity presents. Professor Paterson, my own teacher, 
admired and beloved, after discussing the process by 
which the rationalistic divines attenuate the Gospel and 
reduce to the minimum the blessings which the Gospel 
promises, concludes, “In the process of reducing the 
provisions of the Christian religion, the most distinc- 
tive feature is the tendency to substitute the power of 
ideas for the vital and vitalizing energies proceeding 
from the personal centers of divine life, as the means 
of raising men to a higher plane, and of furnishing 
them with the impetus to spiritual progress.””* An in- 
difference to the historical is oriental, but when the 
occidental enters such a realm, he is not at home. He 
feels that he must have contact with something more 
substantial. It will not, therefore, be some undefinable 
faith in good ethical ideals which will find permanent 
resting place in the hearts of western men: faith in a 
personality is something with which we are familiar; 
it is a language which, when spoken by the New 
8 “The Rule of Faith,” Paterson, p. 341. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 117 


Testament writers, we can understand. Ideas alone 
are impotent; it is only as they become incarnate that 
they touch us. | 

(b) The faith which appropriates forgiveness be- 
gins with belief in the facts of the Gospel. 

Alexander Campbell was right when he taught that 
belief is the credence of testimony. It is just that. 
The only criticism which could be urged with force 
against Mr. Campbell in this regard is that he did not 
go far enough in his definition. If one credit the testi- 
mony concerning the fact that at one time there was in 
the United States a Civil War he believes in the ex- 
istence of that war. If one credit the testimony con- 
cerning the battle of King’s Mountain, he believes that 
the battle was fought. And so it is also if one credit 
the testimony concerning Jesus, he believes in Him. 
To us has come the record in the New Testament of 
the life and work of Jesus. The record has been left by 
men who, above all else, were witnesses. It is amazing 
how great was the confidence of Jesus in ordinary men. 
In the most obscure province of the Roman Empire 
He picks out some of the most humble men of His 
acquaintance and unreservedly turns over to them His 
cause. He tells them to go into the whole world and 
make men Christian. Without means of travel, with- 
out telephone or telegraph, they are to go to the ends 
of the earth with His good news. And they did it,— 
did it so amazingly well that within three centuries 
Christianity had become the official religion of the 
Empire. And this victory was achieved through the 
witnesses whom He chose. In their writings those 
witnesses have left us a record so candid, so honest, 


118 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


that the preaching of it to-day makes believers; it 
evokes faith. But any faith which can rightly come 
within the circle of the Christian definition must be 
based firmly upon the facts of the Gospel as those facts 
are recorded in the great Christian documents. 

We have stated that appropriating faith begins with 
a belief of the facts of the Gospel. This is true, but 
it is not true in the sense that we merely believe in the 
facts as having happened. ‘The facts, as such, isolated 
from the Gospel interpretation of them, are interesting, 
but they are not the Gospel. I may say that I believe. 
that Christ died. That is an interesting fact. It is 
interesting that a good man should die. I may say 
that I believe He died upon a cross. That, too, is a 
sad thing, for it is always an event to provoke to sad- 
ness that a good man should die a martyr to his cause. 
I may say I believe the Master was buried and upon 
the third day was raised from the dead. This is not 
only interesting, it is wonderfull, it is thrilling. But I 
may go even this far without faith in the Gospel; for 
in themselves alone these wondrous facts are not the 
Gospel. I have saving, appropriating faith in the Gos- 
pel when I believe in the Gospel, and I believe in it 
when I believe in the facts as they are interpreted in 
the New Testament. When to my faith in the death of 
Christ, I add, ‘He died for my sins,” then I have stated 
_ the glorious news. When to my belief in his burial 
_ and resurrection, I add, “He was raised for my justifi- 
cation,” then have I stated the Gospel. The theory of 
the facts—their relation to sin and salvation and the 
future life—this is the Gospel, and this I must believe 
if I am to have that faith which will lead me into the 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 119 


blessings of the Father’s grace. It is exactly this which 
Paul affirms in his classic statement to the Corinthians. 
He begins by saying, “Now I make known unto you, 
brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you.” Ex- 
horting them to steadfastness in it, he proceeds to de- 
fine it: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which 
also I received: that Christ died for our sins according 
to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he 
hath been raised on the third day according to the 
scriptures’ (I Cor. 1:1-5). Dr. Denney’s pointed 
comment upon these verses is in line with what we have 
just said about the distinction between fact and theory. 
“Tt is impossible to leave out of the tradition which 
St. Paul had himself received and which he transmitted 
to the Corinthians, the reference to the meaning of 
Christ’s death—‘He died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures’ —and to limit it to the fact: the fact needed 
no such authentication. It is a fact in its meaning for 
sinners which constitutes a gospel, and this, he wishes 
to assert, is the only gospel known.” ® 

This type of faith, one which is rooted and grounded 
in the historic facts and the Gospel interpretation of 
them, is historic faith. Jesus actually lived, suffered, 
died, was buried and rose again. He was historic; 
something actually happened to Him. True faith which 
appropriates the Christian blessings will always be his- 
toric faith. Alexander Campbell is right when he con- 
tends: “There is no faith worth anything that is not 
historical; for all our religion is founded upon his- 
tory.”*° One of Mr. Campbell’s greatest contribu- 


9“The Death of Christ,” Denney, p. 80. 
10 “Christian Baptism,” Alexander Campbell, p. 70. 


120 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


tions to our modern thought concerning faith was his 
work in bringing men back to the historical basis upon 
which Christianity is builded. In his day, and we have 
not fully recovered from the effects of it even to the 
present hour, there prevailed a widespread mysticism 
in which faith was considered to be largely a matter 
of feeling. This was due in part to the work of 
James Hervey, a member of the “Godly Club” at Ox- 
ford. Hervey wrote “The Dialogues between Theron 
and Apasio.” In this work he expounded the Meth- 
odist-Moravian view of faith. His insistence upon the 
“sense of adoption,” and his identification of it with 
faith, did two things: (1) ]! made faith a state of 
feeling rather than the credence of truth by the in- 
tellect; and (2) it relegated belief to the end of the 
conversion process rather than placing it at the begin- 
ning where it logically belongs. Alexander Campbell 
called his day back to the facts of the Gospel as they 
had transpired in Palestine. From this we can never 
get far away and still be Christian in the New Testa- 
ment meaning of the term. Our faith is founded upon 
something which came to pass in the valleys and upon 
the hills and mountains of the Holy Land. 

We cannot emphasize too frequently the fact that 
the power of faith is not in our act of believing, nor 
in the manner of it, but in the content of it—in what | 
we believe and in the difference which that belief makes 
in our attitude toward God. It is in the response which 
faith provokes that there is power to save. Paul con- 
fidently affirms that the Gospel “is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom. 
1:16). And so it is; the Gospel is power, but the 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 121 


power is in what we believe, in the saving proposition 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God 
and the Saviour of the world. This is the saving truth, 
and to believe it is the beginning of that which will 
result in forgiveness from the Father and the promise 
of eternal life with Him. 

(c) The faith which appropriates forgiveness 1s 
manifest in a genuine repentance toward God. 

It is not ours here to discuss repentance save as it 
is related to faith. For long there has been much con- 
fusion regarding the exact relation between believing 
in Christ and turning in penitence to God. The view 
which has had the largest currency is one which states 
that repentance precedes faith. Faith is at the end of 
the process of conversion. Those who preach it thus 
base their argument upon one statement of Jesus, “Re- 
pent ye, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). 
Logically, however, faith precedes repentance. We re- 
pent because we believe. It is because of what we have 
known of Christ that we desire to turn toward Him 
and away from our sins, in repentance. When we come 
into contact with the sin-bearing love of God upon the 
cross, our hearts incline toward Him. In our re- 
pentance, faith is objectified. It is because of what we 
believe that we turn from sin, that we change our 
minds concerning it. How could any man repent of sin 
against God if he did not believe he had sinned against 
Him? And it is just this, that Jesus reveals to us our 
sin, and that we believe in Him, which brings us to 
repentance. Faith is the “foundation of repentance 
from dead works.” It bears the same relation to re- 
pentance as cause does to effect, or means to an end. 


122 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


It is as literally true that “‘repentance cometh by faith, 
as faith cometh by hearing, as hearing by the word of 
God.” Faith is the process in which the soul abandons 
itself unreservedly to the love of God in Christ; re- 
pentance is the act in which the turning away from sin 
to the love of God is made. 

This relationship between faith and repentance is set 
forth even more clearly in the foundational meaning 
of the word itself. There are two words in the New 
Testament which are translated “repent,” mwetavova 
and petauéAouat. The second of these terms is never 
found, in all the New Testament, in connection with 
faith or any of the Gospel facts. It is never in the 
imperative mode; God, in commanding repentance, 
never employs it. And the reason is evident, for it 
means merely to have sorrow or regret for something 
done. Further than this the word does not go. When 
Judas is said to have repented, this is the word used. 
He had sorrow, he regretted profoundly what he had 
done; he did not repent. God never uses this word, 
for he never commands any one to repent in the style of 
Judas. The word used is wetdvoiw, which means “a 
change of mind, a change of heart and affections, with 
a view to the reformation of life.’ When Peter com- 
manded the Pentecostians to repent, he used this word. 
It was as though he said “wervdvoeve, change your 
minds in regard to sin, act from new motives, in view 
of what you have just heard, turn to God. Because of 
what you now believe concerning Jesus Christ, repent 
toward Him.” And what was the change in their 
minds which induced them to cry to him for the way of 
salvation? When they had assembled to hear him, they 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 123 


believed Christ dead. They believed that His body had 
been buried in the tomb, and that early on the morning 
of the third day the disciples had come and stolen it 
away while the guard slept. But Peter’s sermon had 
proved to them that they had killed their own Lord, 
and now, as they cried aloud, it was the cry of be- 
lieving men. On this new belief concerning Jesus they 
were commanded to repent or turn away from their 
past sins to Him who could save them and who so 
eagerly waited to forgive them. Faith here, belief in 
Christ, inspired their repentance. 

(d) The faith which appropriates forgiveness 1s 
further objectified in acts of definite obedience. 

Professor Mackintosh defines it as “the obedient 
and grateful apprehension of God in Christ.”’** John 
reports Jesus as saying, “If ye love me, ye will keep 
my commandments’ (John 14:15). The writer of 
Hebrews emphasizes the necessity of an obedient faith, 
“And having been made perfect, he became unto all 
them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation” 
(Heb. 5:9). It is true that faith leads to obedience; 
is it not even better to say that obedience is faith itself 
in action? Faith and obedience are the inside and the 
outside of the same thing. 

The meaning of the good confession is apprehended 
when we consider it as faith in act, faith objectified. 
The man of faith is constantly confessing Jesus as 
Lord; the life of faith is continually a life of confes- 
sion. But in New Testament days the faith which 
came through the hearing of the Gospel was focused 
into a great public act of confession. It is to this act 


11“The Divine Initiative,” Mackintosh, p. 70. 


124 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


that Paul refers when he writes: “If thou shalt con- 
fess with thy mouth, Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in 
thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto 
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made 
unto salvation” (I Tim. 6:12). It is interesting to 
note just what Paul considers to be a foundational 
thing in faith. He bluntly tells what one must believe, 
and in so doing definitely ties our faith to that which 
is historic. One must believe that God raised Him 
from the dead. There is here nothing of the etherial; 
it is not a Gospel which is, so to speak, up in the air 
and divorced from the basic experiences in the his- 
toric life of Jesus. It is a definite assertion that what 
we believe must have direct contact with that which has 
basis in fact, “that God raised Him from the dead.” ”” 
Can we deny this fundamental truth and still lay claim 
to being Christian in the New Testament conception 
of the word? The confession of Jesus as Lord must 
also be made with the mouth and before witnesses, 
preferably many witnesses. Here is an act of faith, an 
act in which positively and without any reservations 
whatsoever, the one coming to Christ identifies him- 
self with the Master and His cause. It is an act which 
could only come from a heart full of trust; it is truly 
the good confession of faith. 

We shall later in our study consider with some care 
the act of baptism as related to the forgiveness of sins. 
It is sufficient here to note it as an act of faith. In 
this positive act in which the death, burial and resur- 
rection of Jesus are set forth in symbolic action there 

12“The Death of Christ,’ Denney, p. 133. 


“APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 125 


is a mighty confession of faith. By acting out these 
things we declare our faith in those basic facts without 
which there never could have been the Gospel of Christ 
—his death for our sins, his burial, and his resurrection 
for our justification. In his usual brilliant way, Pro- 
fessor Denney states this truth. In giving an exposi- 
tion of Romans 6, he says, “But the new life is in- 
volved in the faith evoked by the sin-bearing death 
of Christ, and in nothing else; it is involved in this, 
and this is pictorially presented in baptism, hence the 
use St. Paul makes of this sacrament in the same chap- 
ter. He is able to use it in his argument in the way 
he does because baptism and faith are but the outside 
and inside of the same thing.” ** Baptism is faith ob- 
jectified. As one cannot define faith as only belief in 
Christ, so also it is impossible to define it without those 
acts in which it is made saving and dynamic, those acts 
in which it shows itself alive. John Sweeney, in his 
sermon, “Justification by Faith,’ expresses this in 
language which at first gives us pause, shocks us into 
inquiry, “Baptism, therefore, is simply actualized faith. 
Baptism for the remission of sins is justification by 
faith. Baptism is faith acting and appropriating jus- 
tification for the believer.” ** Dr. Sweeney, in another 
connection, shows that baptism is not to be considered a 
work through which we merit salvation. It was not 
against such that Paul unloosed his thunders. The 
works to which he referred were those acts of the Jews 
through which they thought to earn salvation. Bap- 
tism is an act of obedience to Christ, since Christ left 


13 “The Death of Christ,” Denney, p. 133. 
14 “New Testament Christianity,’ Sweeney, p. 401. 


126 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


it as a command, that one who has true faith in Him 
will do this thing which He requires. This is the 
foundational meaning of faith. A great modern Scot- 
tish theologian recognizes this as faith itself in action 
when he says, “I cannot set my faith upon Him with- 
out being thereby aware that 1 must obey Him uncon- 
ditionally.” 

How often has the mistake been made of sharply dis- © 
tinguishing between certain steps in the plan of salva- 
tion. There is first of all the act of hearing the Gospel. 
After this there is the very clearly defined step of be- 
lieving it. When we have believed, we take another 
definite step; we repent. After our repentance we make 
a public confession. When once the confession has 
been made, we go down into the waters and are bap- 
tized. It is true that we can thus divide the whole 
process which we call faith into these steps, but it 
does not destroy the fact that, after all, they are but 
steps in which faith is casting itself upon the Saviour, 
they are but steps in that whole process, that way of 
life which itself bears the name of faith. Alexander 
Campbell was wont to speak of the various steps in the 
one process as “that golden chain of grace which binds 
and connects our souls to the throne of God.” But 
with him these steps were so intimately connected that 
it was impossible to separate them from each other. 

(e) Itis apparent from our study that we may now 
sum up our definition of that faith through which we 
appropriate the gracious forgiveness of the Father in 
a sentence. It is, above all things else, an attitude of 
the soul toward God in Jesus Christ our Lord. There 
are many things which true faith includes. This has 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 127 


become manifest as we have considered it from the 
various standpoints. How many-sided it is! It is be- 
lief, it is awe, it is reverence, it is dependence, it is 
humility. But, again, it is penitence, it is obedience, 
“it is everything” included in our experience of God 
the Saviour and His boundless love. 

Faith is the whole attitude of the sinful man who 
yearns for the forgiveness which the Father longs to 
bestow. In a surpassingly beautiful passage, Profes- 
sor Denney exclaims: “Grace is not a thing which can 
be infused, nor is there any meaning in such an expres- 
sion as that love is inherent in the heart; there are no 
gifts of grace’which, so to speak, can be lodged bodily 
in the soul. Grace is the attitude of God to man, which 
is revealed and made sure in Christ, and the only way 
it becomes effective in us for new life is when it wins 
for us the response of faith. And just as grace is the 
whole attitude of God in Christ to sinful men, so faith 
is the whole attitude of the sinful soul as it surrenders 
itself to that grace. Whether we call it the life of 
the justified, or the life of the reconciled, or the life 
of the regenerate, or the life of grace or of love, the 
new life is the life of faith and nothing else. To main- 
tain the original attitude of welcoming God’s love as it 
is revealed in Christ bearing our sins,—not only to 
trust it, but to go on trusting,—not merely to believe in 
it as a mode of transition from the old to the new, but 
to keep on believing,—to say with every breath we 
draw, “Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in 
thee I find’—is not a part of the Christian life, but the 
whole of it.” *° Everything is present in faith and the 


15 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,’ Denney, pp. 301-02. 


128 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


life of faith—self-sacrifice, contrition, the impulse to 
service; it is the attitude of obedient surrender of the 
soul, it “is the whole manifestation of Christianity in 
life and act.” 

It has, I think, also been clear from the very begin- 
ning of our discussion that the working power of 
faith, its center and heart, is love. It is not something 
isolated from faith, another entity, so to speak; it is 
the motive power of faith itself. Paul so thought of 
it. ‘“Forin Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth 
anything, nor wuncircumcision; but faith worketh 
through love’ (Gal. 5:6). When we abandon our- 
selves to the sin-bearing love of God in Christ, when 
thus we would appropriate to our needy souls the for- 
giveness which can make us righteous, our faith must 
have love as its very essence. It is a love evoked by 
what we see in Christ. To look at Him upon the 
cross dying for sin, and to recognize that in this we 
see something more powerful than sin,—something 
which is the last reality in God,—this is that experience 
above all others which evokes the love which works 
through faith to do His will. This is what John 
means when he writes, ‘““We love because he first 
loved us” (I John 4:19). To speak of love as some 
kind of plus to faith is to speak in words unknown 
to the New Testament. It is the heart and core of 
faith. Thus it is that when the wandering son casts 
himself unreservedly upon the love of God, in faith, 
he is right. It is not a fictitious righteousness; he is 
right, right in his new relation to the Father, right in 
that now he can grow into that stature of the child of 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 129 


God in the protecting and nurturing love of the 
Father’s home. 

But we would miss the meaning of appropriating 
faith altogether, were we to neglect to think of it as 
trust. Whatever else he may have meant by his defi- 
nition of it, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews 
surely defines faith thus, and in the whole eleventh 
chapter illustrates this side of it. “Faith is assurance 
of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen” 
(Heb. 11:1). “The assurance of things hoped for”; 
the certainty that those things are real. ‘The convic- 
tion of things not seen’’; the certainty that those things 
not seen are not unreal but only unseen. To the man 
of faith, there are things which are beyond the realm 
of the knowable and the tangible, beyond possibility of 
realization by sense, and yet to him they are real, they 
are actual. Try as he will, he cannot make himself 
disbelieve them. He believes in God, and because he 
believes in Him, those things which can only come 
from Him are actual. He trusts. And thus does he 
believe that he shall be forgiven. God is his father 
and he can trust Him for that blessing. It is because 
of trust that the heavenly home is real to him, Be- 
cause God is father, He will want His children with 
Him in the paternal mansions. It is in the realm 
of trust that faith is an adventure. Through trust 
we walk in paths which never before our feet have 
trod. Through trust we leave the known and venture 
far beyond the stars to heights which we find through 
such experience to be real. Dr. Clarke expresses it 
well. ‘The nature of faith is nowhere better illus- 


180 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


trated than in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Here 
both elements appear, the perception of the divine 
spiritual facts as real, and the hearty committing of 
soul and life to them. Here are found most living 
and beautiful illustrations of that trustful recognition 
of divine reality by virtue of which Moses endured as 
seeing Him who is invisible, and the patriarchs greeted 
the promises from afar; and this is faith.’ ** There 
comes a limit to our knowledge. We are done, and no 
further can we go. Itis then that we reach out through 
trust and embrace needful realities by faith. Then it 
is that our sentiment is that of Tennyson when he 
thought of Jesus: 


“Strong Son of God; immortal love, 
Whom we who have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone embrace, 
Believing where we cannot prove.” 


We cannot prove God, nor immortality, nor the for- 
giveness of sins; but we believe, and concerning them 
we cannot persuade ourselves to disbelieve. 


III. IT WILL NOT BE REPETITION FOR US TO INQUIRE 
AS TO THE MANNER BY WHICH THIS APPRO- 
PRIATING FAITH IS PRODUCED IN THE HEART 


It is certainly not something which we work up for 
ourselves. We do not take up faith as one would take 
up some pleasant form of exercise or some new fad. 


It is not something which we produce out of our own 
16 “An Outline of Christian Theology,” Clarke, p. 404. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 131 


resources. This is perhaps one of the worst of the 
various naturalistic explanations of faith. It ignores 
all God has done in bringing salvation to us. It takes 
the form of explaining the spiritual as merely the re- 
sult of the evolution of character. By being good I 
may eventually become spiritual. Forgiveness is by 
character and not by any act of God in our behalf. 
The old theologians were right when they contended 
that faith is a gift of God. Not that it is a gift in the 
sense that it is something infused or a commodity 
actually placed by miracle in the heart. This view of 
it has been illustrated by saying that faith comes into 
the heart, flashed from the Father as an electric spark 
comes over the wire. But this is not the sense in 
which faith can be said to be God’s gift. It is a gift 
in that He provides the object of faith and creates the 
conditions which bring it into being. It is a gift in 
the sense that He is responsible for all that makes it 
possible; the initiative is with Him. With our under- 
standing of the nature of faith as we have been con- 
sidering it, we may say that faith is a gift in the same 
sense in which faith, turning to God in repentance, is 
a gift. It is to this sublime truth, this saving act of 
Christ, that the apostle gives expression, “Him did 
God exalt with his right hand to be a prince and a 
Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of 
sins” (Acts 5:31). He makes room for repentance 
by providing those experiences in His own cross and 
resurrection, which evoke it, that remission of sins may 
follow as the greatest and most-to-be-desired of all 
heavenly blessings. JI cannot do better than to quote 
the beautiful words of another, as he sets forth the 


132 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


how of the gift. “Christ’s forgiveness begins by re- 
vealing our sin. Or, it begins by revealing God’s jus- 
tice, and by uttering in our consciences his condemna- 
tion of sin. Christ makes this revelation in many ways. 
He makes it by His personal character, by His personal 
presence in the world. The sinless one leaves us no 
cloak for our sin. Christ, and Christ alone, is able to 
give this revelation of evil. But further, the whole 
development of Christ’s history is a further revelation 
of evil. Good as such, and evil as such, are there seen 
in conflict. And the whole evil of our sin is made 
plain to us when we perceive that we are sinning against 
love. The cross is the supreme manifestation of sin. 
There we see sin, not only in outward acts, but 
Christ’s exceeding sickness and sorrow under the bur- 
den of the world’s wickedness. At the cross of Christ 
believers have always learned how evil sin is. Whether 
or not their doctrinal explanations of their own experi- 
ence have been correct, the experience itself has been 
God-given, spiritual, saving. Christ has convinced 
them of sin. Christ condemns not his immediate per- 
secutors, but the whole world. He reveals our malady 
as not weakness or accident but guilt.” * 

It is a universal Christian experience that sin is un- 
masked at the cross. There it reveals itself in its true 
form. It is a peculiarity of sin that it always tries 
to hide its real nature. The sinner always finds a 
way to justify himself. But in the presence of Christ’s 
cross all the shams fall away, and sin stands revealed 
in its ugly outlines. Here our supposed legitimate 
self-interest is shown to be but selfishness. In the 

17 “Essays Toward a New Theology,” Mackintosh, pp. 48, 49. 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 133 


light of His cross, our firmness appears as calculated 
cruelty. Before Him our guarded self-respect is but 
arrogance. And it is thus that our Lord so powerfully 
gives repentance; He makes it impossible for us, in the 
conditions in which we find ourselves before Him, to 
hide sin under a cloak. 

We have already insinuated the true manner of 
faith’s coming. It is by revelation, and not in any 
other way, that it comes to the soul. It has been the 
experience of intuitive men that a revelation comes to 
the soul through nature. It is not clear in outline, but 
it is a revelation. Wordsworth felt the presence, and 
in familiar and beautiful passage tells us of it: 


pL neve: felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of thought, 
And rolls through all things.” 


There are a thousand experiences which bring dim 
revelations of something that is to be. It may be a 
moment when in spiritual ecstasy we see beyond the 
present and catch a gleam of that which is to come. 
There have been intuitions of immortality. Of such 
an intuition Tennyson sings: 


184 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


“My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live forevermore, 

Else earth is darkness at the core, 
And dust and ashes all that is. 


Here sits he shaping wings to fly, 
His heart forbodes a mystery; 
He names the name Eternity.” 


Of life that is to be, though misty and shifting its 
form, Wordsworth had an intuition, a revelation to 
the soul: 


“Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.” 


To the poet, such thought or intuition could not be 
explained other than by a direct revelation from the 
Father of all. That he thought it so is manifest when 
he says: 


“In such access of mind, 
Of visitation from the living God, 
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.” 


In frequent statements of the New Testament, we 
are told how faith comes. John writes of its begin- 
nings, “Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the 


APPROPRIATION OF FORGIVENESS 135 


presence of his disciples, which are not written in this 
book: but these are written that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believ- 
ing, ye might have life in his name” (John 20: 30, 31). 
The book was written to reveal Jesus, that through the 
revelation thus given faith in Him might come, and 
through that faith, eternal life. Jesus is the revela- 
tion of the Father, and in the writings of those who 
knew Him in the intimacy of the Apostolic circle, is 
recorded that word through which the revelation is 
made known to us. At the so-called Council in Jeru- 
salem, Peter spake in the same strain, “Brethren, ye 
know that a good while ago, God made choice among 
you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the 
word of the gospel, and believe” (Acts 15:7). Faith 
was to be generated in the Gentile heart by a preach- 
ing of the word of the Gospel, the revelation of Jesus. 
Paul climaxes it when he writes to the Romans, “So 
belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of 
Christ” (Rom. 10:17). That through which we ap- 
propriate forgiveness comes by the revelation which 
we receive through the written word of God, be- 
cause by it Jesus is made known to our hearts and He 
evokes faith, When He is presented to us in His 
beauty of life, in His sacrificial death, in His glorious 
resurrection, He appeals for our faith. “You are ap- 
pealed to for faith in one who, simply by being what he 
is, is capable of eliciting and holding a spontaneous 
and reasonable trust. The object of faith is here the 
sufficient cause of faith, or, to put it otherwise, the 
adequate reasons why I should commit my life to 


136 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Christ are all contained in the fact of Christ Him- 
selivit® 

There is yet another way in which faith is brought 
to the heart: through the lives of those who knew 
Christ as Saviour and Lord. God’s mightiest revela- 
tions have always been made through great personali- 
ties. And it is because we are connected vitally with 
the stream of believing life that Christ is made known 
to us. A godly mother or father, a beloved teacher 
whose very life shone with the love of Christ, a dear 
friend who was through and through a Christian— 
how much do we owe to such for our knowledge of 
Him! What a responsibility is ours, who believe in 
the Lord, to see to it that the image of our Master 
which men see in our lives shall be a true one, that it 
shall not be distorted and besmirched by our failures 
and derelictions. Through Jesus and those who are 
His, we have a new idea of God, a new faith in Him. 
And when we know this, we can never think of faith 
as our own doing; we then realize to the full that it is 
from God. He is yearning for us, through His Son he 
is seeking for us, and it is ours to respond in penitent, 
obedient, loving trust. 


18 “The Divine Initiative,” Mackintosh, p. 71. 


CHAPTERS 


BAPTISM AND THE FORGIVENESS 
OF SINS 


“Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the 
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, 
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 

(Acts 2: 38.) 


What shall the modern man think of baptism? The 
answer to this question will be determined by what he 
thinks of the ultimate realities of the Christian re- 
ligion. If he feels that Jesus was only the pattern 
believer, that His cross was after all only a piece of 
religious impressionism,—the last act of the teaching 
of our Lord, but effectual only as a moral influence 
and not as a sacrifice by which the way to the Father 
is opened to us,—then baptism will have but little in- 
terest for him. To such a man as this, baptism will 
become decreasingly significant because “there is no 
real meaning in baptism, however impressive Christ 
may be, if He be not regenerative, if it means that 
we are to be but moved by the Spirit, and not born 
again.”’* In a word, we are trying to say that the 
baptism as conceived in the New Testament is founded 
upon the atonement of Christ, that it is rooted and 
grounded in what Jesus did upon the cross, that all 
its meaning flows from that precious fountain. ‘“Bap- 


1“The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 178. 
137 


188 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


tism is a confessional act to which the assurance of 
forgiveness is attached.”* A confessional act! A 
confession of our faith in the dead, buried, resurrected 
and exalted Christ as Lord. When, therefore, one 
comes to the place in which Jesus is no longer Lord 
and Christ of his life, that act which is a mighty con- 
fession of such faith loses all its significance and be- 
comes a matter of indifference. If baptism is indis- 
solubly connected with the forgiveness of sins, it will 
survive in the Church.of God; if it has no such con- 
nection, the sooner we throw it into the discard the 
better for the spiritual life of God’s people. It is 
here that the whole question regarding the survival of 
baptism rests. And it is significant that those who are 
to-day reticent in speaking of baptism or practicing it 
are those who are not sure as to the certainty of the 
fundamental things which the Church has taught 
throughout the years, and which were believed in the 
New Testament community. A minister, who is pas- 
tor of one of the largest churches in the southern part 
of the United States, recently said, ‘‘I feel ashamed of 
myself every time I go down into the water to bap- 
tize.” This man is one who holds to the misnamed 
theory of the moral influence of the atonement. He 
is one who believes that we ought to believe in God 
because Jesus believed in Him, and that we should be- 
lieve in immortality and the forgiveness of sins because 
Jesus believed in these things. Nothing that Jesus did, 
in any special way, makes us reconciled to God save 
that He teaches us that God is a loving Father. It is 
not surprising that one believing as this man does 
2“The Atonement the Heart of the Gospel,’ Campbell, p. 190. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 139 


would be ashamed to baptize when the act is so indis- 
solubly connected with the atonement as it is conceived 
and exhibited in the New Testament. That which 
gives to baptism its meaning and power he no longer 
believes; hence, he is ashamed to baptize. One cannot 
but wonder why he does not cease that which has be- 
come but a mockery. How can he do in the name of 
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit 
that which to him is but a meaningless physical act? 
Honesty, if nothing else, would seem to dictate that 
he quit the practice altogether. 

Is baptism connected in any way with the forgive- 
ness of sins or with that which is the ground of our 
forgiveness? If it is, it will be as unchangeable and 
as perpetual as the final work of the Lord Himself. 
If it has not such a connection, a modern impatience 
with those things in religion which are purely formal 
will demand its discontinuance. The very life of the 
ordinance, therefore, depends upon its absolute and 
final relation to those things without which there would 
be no Christian religion at all. To a consideration of 
this relation, then, we will devote ourselves in the 
present chapter. 


I. IN THE WORLD OF NEW TESTAMENT IDEAS, BAP- 
TISM IS ALWAYS CONNECTED WITH THE FOR- 
GIVENESS OF SINS 


It has been the notable tendency of modern criticism 
to acknowledge that Paul was a sacramentarian or 
a believer in the fact that baptism does have to do 
with the remission of sins. The older Free Church 


140 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


theologians were filled with absolute consternation if 
this was even mentioned as a possibility, but there can- 
not be a shadow of doubt that to-day there is a de- 
cided trend among the critical scholars toward the 
sacramentarian view of things. Weiss, for example, 
is an out and out sacramentarian when he affirms that 
“baptism is the second great principle of salvation, and 
not less indispensable for regeneration or the reception 
of the Holy Spirit than faith is for justification.” * 
Wernle is equally a believer in this attitude of the 
Apostle to the Gentiles when he says, “It was Paul 
who first created the conception of a sacrament.’ * 
Lake contends for this view of the position of Paul on 
baptism (that it does have to do with the remission 
of sins, and is therefore a sacrament) when he writes, 
“Baptism is, for St. Paul and his readers, universally 
and unquestioningly accepted as a ‘mystery’ or sacra- 
ment which works ex opere operato: and from the 
unhesitating manner in which St. Paul uses this fact 
as a basis for argument, as if it were a point on which 
Christian opinion did not vary, it would seem as though 
this sacramental teaching is central in the primitive 
Christianity to which the Roman Empire began to be 
converted.” ° Pfleiderer is equally certain of Paul’s 
sacramental belief when he says, “Baptism appears as 
the foundation of the life in the Spirit, and at the same 
time, as the means by which he is communicated,” ° 
while Professor Andrews sums up the matter when he 
says, ““With this evidence before us, it seems very hard 


3 Quoted by Andrews, “The Church and the Sacraments,” p. 144. 
4 “Beginnings of Christianity,” E. T., I, pp. 273-4. 

5 “Earlier Epistles of St. Paul,” p. 385. 

6 “Primitive Christianity,” E. T., I, p. 387. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 141 


to resist the conclusion (however little we may like it), 
that if the Epistles of St. Paul do not enunciate the 
ecclesiastical doctrine of baptismal regeneration, they 
at any rate approximate very closely to it.’ With 
these illustrious names, many others could be men- 
tioned of those who have come to the conclusion 
(Weinel, Feine, Titius, Heitmiiller, Schweitzer, etc.), 
and many of them with great reluctance, “that the 
sacramental principle is a vital element in the teach- 
ing of Paul.” While the symbolic position, that bap- 
tism is but a symbol of what takes place, has been de- 
fended for years by such men as Bruce, Candlish, etc., 
yet the consensus of scholarship seems to be that to 
Paul baptism was a sacrament, that it did have in some 
way to do with the remission of sins. 

A cursory examination of some of the passages in 
his Epistles where baptism is considered enforces this 
contention. First of all, the mighty statement in the 
Roman letter attracts our attention. “Or are ye ig- 
norant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus 
were baptized into his death? We were buried with 
him, therefore, through baptism into death: that like 
as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory 
of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of 
life’ (Rom. 6:3-5). In the same strain he writes 
to the Colossians, “Having been buried with him in 
baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through 
faith in the working of God, who raised him from 
the dead” (Col. 2:12). To the Galatians he writes, 
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did 
put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). From these statements 

7“The Church and the Sacraments,” p. 149. 


142 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


there can be no doubt but that Paul held that one of 
the steps, shall we say the final step, of those which 
lead to Christ is baptism. There is forgiveness of sins 
only in Christ, the Lamb of God. It is only one step 
more, then, to the position that that which is instru- 
mental in bringing us into union with Christ is vitally 
related to the forgiveness of our sins. Only this can 
he mean by such phrases as “baptized into Christ,” or 
“baptized into his death.” 

But there are several other passages worthy of note 
as illustrating the so-called sacramentarianism of Paul. 
In the first letter to the Corinthians he writes: “Or 
know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither forni- 
cators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, 
nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor 
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, 
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were 
some of you; but ye were washed (Greek ‘washed 
yourselves’), but ye were sanctified, but ye were jus- 
tified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 
6:9-11). “The best commentary on the phrase ‘ye 
were washed’ is to be found in Acts 22:16, where 
Ananias is represented as saying to Paul on the day 
of his conversion, ‘Arise and be baptized and wash 
away thy sins.’ In both these statements there seems 
to be a very definite nexus between baptism and the 
forgiveness of sins. It would rob the statement in 
Corinthians of all its force if we paraphrased the 
phrase ‘ye were washed’ into ‘ye were baptized’ as a 
symbol of your conversion.” * 

8 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Andrews, p. 148. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 143 


Another passage in the Epistle of Titus, even though 
it may be considered by some not to have been written 
by Paul, yet without doubt comes from the Pauline 
school, and is illustrative of this same belief that bap- 
tism does have a vital relation to the forgiveness of 
sins. “When the kindness of God our Saviour, and 
his love toward man, appeared, not by works done in 
righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to 
his mercy he saved us, through the washing (literally, 
laver) of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy 
Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through 
Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his 
grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope 
of eternal life’ (Titus 3:4-7). “Here by the wash- 
ing of regeneration the apostle means baptism, which 
is so called because it is a species of washing connected 
with the process of regeneration; and it is affirmed by 
this and the renewing of the Holy Spirit (the inward 
work of the Spirit which precedes baptism) we are 
saved.” ° At any rate, the thing to be noted in this 
passage is that, according to the Pauline mode of 
thinking, there is a connection between baptism and the 
remission of sins. 

One other passage will serve sufficiently to illustrate 
the indisputable fact that this position is true, and that, 
whether we like it or not, Paul belongs to the ranks 
of the so-called sacramentarians. In the “great hier- 
archy of spiritual realities’ which he names in the 
Ephesian Epistle, the Apostle includes baptism. 
“There is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, 
one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4: 1-6). 


9 “Commentary on Acts,” McGarvey, p. 252. 


144 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Why should he have placed baptism on this high pin- 
nacle if it was not considered by him to be far more 
than merely a symbol of our conversion to the Lord. 
He places it among the fundamental things, and the 
fact that he does so is simply in line with all his other 
teaching about it, namely, that it deserves such a place 
because it is connected with the solution of that which 
has ever been the central problem of religion, the for- 
giveness of sins. 

A final and indisputable statement is found in the 
next chapter of the Ephesian letter in the words, 
“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it, 
that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the 
washing of water with the word.” Commenting on 
these words, Dr. Andrews says, “No amount of in- 
genuity can eviscerate their clear meaning and signifi- 
cance.” *° There can be no doubt, therefore, with all 
the evidence which we have considered, that the Apostle 
Paul believed baptism to be more than a mere symbol, 
—that he believed it to be in some way connected with 
the great atonement of our Lord, and, therefore, with 
our redemption; that it did have a clear and unmis- 
takable relation to the remission of sins. 

It is interesting to note how some of the great 
scholars, who have been forced by the evidence which 
we have been considering to acknowledge that Paul 
did believe baptism has a relation to the forgive- 
ness of sins, try to explain this position away. It is 
contended, for instance, that there is but one way out 
of the dilemma. This is to be found in the argument 
that sacramentarianism is not native to the soil of 

10 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 149. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 145 


Christianity, “but is one of those alien elements which 
have filtered into his (Paul’s) thought from the at- 
mosphere of the age. Its origin is to be traced not to 
the teachings of Jesus or the inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit, but rather to current beliefs and practices which 
prevailed in certain pagan forms of religion at the 
time. Sacramentarianism arose not as the natural 
evolution of the primal seed of Gospel Truth which 
was revealed to the world in the teaching and work 
of Jesus Christ, but rather as an ‘involution’ or product 
of its environment.” ** There can be no doubt that 
ideas analogous to those which seem to appear in 
baptism were prevalent in the pagan world of the 
time. In the Greek Mysteries and other forms of re- 
ligion there were decidedly sacramentarian ideas. Now 
the argument would make it appear that these had a 
reflex influence upon the thought of Paul who was 
acquainted with such pagan teachings. We shall not 
attempt just here to answer this position in detail. It 
is enough to notice that it is the suggested “way out’ of 
accepting the teaching, so clear and unmistakable, that 
baptism has to do with the remission of sins. For so 
many years it has been taught among the majority of 
theologians that baptism is but a symbolic act, that it 
is a hard thing for many in this day, when the science 
of scriptural interpretation has swept away the old 
unscriptural positions, to accept the plain teaching of 
the Word. It is to be noted that what seems to be 
the only way out is simply to deny that such teaching 
has any divine foundation, and that, if Paul taught 
it, he invented it all, or borrowed it bodily from the 


11 “The Church and the Sacramenvs,” Andrews, p. 157. 


146 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


pagan religions around him. But that in the teach- 
ing of the Apostle to the Gentiles there is the firm 
conviction that baptism and the forgiveness of sins 
are vitally related, is acknowledged, though at times 
reluctantly, by the majority of the best theologians of 
the modern school. 

It is necessary for a moment to advert to the first 
proposition of this discussion. It is that in the world 
of New Testament ideas baptism is always connected 
with the remission of sins. The so-called sacra- 
mentarian attitude is not merely a Pauline mode of 
thought,—it is a New Testament attitude. In a word, 
what Paul wrote in his letters was the universal faith 
of the Church, so universal, in fact, that there was no 
controversy about it. The words of one of our great- 
est modern New Testament scholars, the late Professor 
Denney, express this truth so clearly that I cannot do 
better than to quote them. “In all its forms, the com- 
mission has to do either with baptism (so in Matthew 
and Mark) or with the remission of sins (so in Luke 
and John). These are but two forms of the same 
thing, for in the world of New Testament ideas, bap- 
tism and the remission of sins are inseparably asso- 
ciated.” In yet another splendid passage he says, 
“There is a link wanted to unite what we have seen 
in the Gospels with what we find when we pass from 
them to the other books of the New Testament, and 
that link is exactly supplied by a charge of Jesus to His 
disciples to make the forgiveness of sins the center of 
their Gospel, and to attach it to the rite by which men 
were admitted to the Christian society. In an age when 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 147 


baptism and remission of sins were inseparable ideas, 
—when, so to speak, they interpenetrated each other,— 
it is no wonder that the sense of our Lord’s charge is 
given in some of the Gospels in one form, in some in 
another; that here He bade them baptize, and there 
preach the forgiveness of sins.” ** A brief study of 
some of the other passages in the New Testament aside 
from those which are distinctively Pauline will show 
how universal was the belief in the New Testament, 
that baptism has to do with the remission of sins. 
First, then, consider the baptism of John the Baptist, 
which prefigured Christian baptism, and which in the 
case of the Apostles themselves was reckoned as Chris- 
tian baptism. This was a “baptism of repentance unto 
the remission of sins’ (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). In 
this rite the remission of sins is inseparably associated 
with baptism, it is a baptism for the remission of sins, 
“a baptism of repentance with the view to the remis- 
sion of sins.” The point to note is that the so-called 
Pauline idea is here. 

The great commission of our Lord, in whatever 
form it is given in the Gospels, is, as we have already 
noted in the words of Dr. Denney, always connected 
either with baptism or the forgiveness of sins, and 
“these two are but two forms of the same thing.” * 
Right here, then, in that great command out of which 
the church has grown, we have two ideas interpene- 
trating, indissolubly connected, and founded upon the 
death of our Lord. In the book of Acts, Luke speaks 


12“'The Death of Christ,’ Denney, pp. 52-58. 
18 [bid., p. 13. 


148 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


of this relation again and again. The great utter- 
ance of Peter on Pentecost is one of the mightiest of 
these references. To the agonized cry of the con- 
science-stricken multitude, “Men and brethren, what 
shall we do?” he replied, “Repent ye, and be baptized, 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the 
remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift 
of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). If John’s baptism 
was a baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins, 
the same language here means the same thing,—that 
the baptism thus commanded in the name of Jesus was 
in order to, or with a view to, the remission of sins. 
So did Peter understand it, and so did they who re- 
ceived it. Here, therefore, in the first Gospel sermon 
after the return of our Lord to glory, baptism was 
preached and received with the so-called sacramen- 
tarian attitude clearly manifest. There is no conver- 
sion recorded in the Book of Acts which does not end 
with the baptism of the believer. [Keeping in mind that 
those who went out preaching the word were those who 
had been brought into Christ through the first teach- 
ing of the Jerusalem church, and that all those who 
were baptized in the Jerusalem church were baptized 
with the view to the remission of sins, it seems but a 
logical inference to suggest that the same purpose was 
in the minds of all those who preached, and all those 
who received the commanded baptism. As a substan- 
tiation of this position, we have the plain words of 
Ananias to Saul of Tarsus, “Arise, and be baptized, 
and wash away thy sins.” Here, if this verse illus- 
trates anything at all, it is surely the fact that the 
New Testament Christians believed that in baptism 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 149 


they were translated into the realm where the forgive- 
ness of sins was the priceless possession. 

In the appendix to Mark our Lord is quoted, “He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Even 
if the contentions of most of the scholars be correct, 
and this portion be not a true part of the Gospel but 
only an addition, yet it serves to illustrate the fact 
which we are noting, that the New Testament church 
believed baptism had to do with the remission of sins. 
Still another, and a crucial verse in the First Epistle 
of Peter, leaves no doubt as to the attitude of the New 
Testament mind toward baptism in its relation to that 
which is of more interest to the soul in the religious 
realm than anything else. After a reference to the time 
of the flood, when eight souls “were saved through 
water,” the writer goes on to add the mightily signifi- 
cant words “which (water) also after a true likeness 
doth also now save you, even baptism, not the putting 
away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation 
of a good conscience toward God.” “This later clause 
deals simply with the mode in which baptism works, 
and states that its efficacy consists not in the physical 
effect produced by the water in cleansing the body, but 
in the interrogation of a good conscience toward God” 
(whatever this much debated phrase may mean). “The 
essential point in the passage is the categorical state- 
ment that baptism is an agency by which salvation is 
rendered possible.” ** The climax of the teaching of 
the New Testament, however, aside from the words 
of Paul, is to be found in the statement attributed to 
our Lord in his conversation with Nicodemus, by the 

14 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, pp. 153, 154. 


150 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Apostle John, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except 
a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5). From this 
statement, in its apparent meaning, there is no escape. 
Baptism is essential, not in the sense of bene esse, 
but to the esse of the Christian life. Wiéithout it there 
is no sense in which we can enter into the kingdom of 
God. We may not like this teaching; it may conflict 
with all that we have been taught or with all that we 
have thought about the subject; it may come into vio- 
lent collision with all our denominational prejudices. 
What we are interested in just now is that it is the 
teaching of the New Testament writers. Do with it 
what we will, baptism is in some way connected with 
the remission of sins. In a word, the so-called sacra- 
mentarian attitude on the question of baptism is not 
merely a Pauline mode of thought; it is a New Testa- 
ment attitude, characteristic of the New Testament 
writers from beginning to end, one about which there 
was never a shadow of doubt in any of their minds. 
The evidence for this is so overwhelming, and the ar- 
guments so absolutely conclusive, that in the words of 
Dr. Andrews, “‘We are forced to admit that as far 
as exegesis is concerned, the sacramentarian interpre- 
tation of Paulinism (and on the preceding page he ad- 
mits the whole New Testament) has won a decisive 
victory, and the symbolical school has been driven off 
the field. There can be no doubt whatever that bap- 
tism and the Eucharist stood for far more in the life 
of the Apostolic Church than they do in the estimation 
of the bulk of the members of the Free Churches to- 
day. The evidence seems to me to be so clear upon 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 151 


this point as to amount to almost demonstrative 
proof.” *° 

It seems clear in the light of these facts that just 
here lies the answer to the argument that Paul received 
his sacramentarian principles from the environing at- 
mosphere in which he lived. We know that later on the 
church was susceptible to the influences of the pagan 
religions and the philosophic schools by which it was 
surrounded, but the evidence for an infiltration of these 
ideas into all the teaching of the early New Testament 
writers is so meager that we cannot lay too much 
stress upon it. It seems far more likely that the in- 
fluence went the other way, from Christianity out upon 
the pagan religions. In the world of the New Testa- 
ment, baptism and the remission of sins were always 
associated, and the evidence is incontrovertible that 
this universal idea goes back to the very earliest Chris- 
tian tradition. I have no desire needlessly to pile up 
authorities, but Dr. Denney has said what I want to 
say so much better than I could possibly say it that 
I cannot refrain from quoting him at length once more: 
“The New Testament nowhere gives us the idea of an 
unbaptized Christian,—‘by one Spirit we were all bap- 
tized into the one body’ (I Cor. 12:13). Paul, in 
regulating the observance of the Supper at Corinth, 
regulates it as part of the Christian tradition which 
goes back for its authority, through the primitive 
church, to Christ himself. ‘I received of the Lord that 
which I delivered unto yow (I Cor. 11:23). In 
other words there was no such thing known to Paul as 
a Christian society without baptism as its rite of com- 


15 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Andrews, pp. 154, 155. 


152 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


munion. And if there was no such thing known to 
Paul, there was no such thing in the world. There is 
nothing in Christianity more primitive than the sac- 
raments, and the sacraments, wherever they exist, are 
witnesses to the connection between the death of Christ 
and the forgiveness of sins.’ *° 


Il. LET US NOW ATTEMPT A CONSTRUCTIVE STATE- 
MENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM AS RE- 
LATED TO THE: REMISSION OF SINS 


That this reconstruction of the teaching of the 
churches regarding baptism is urgently needed is evi- 
denced by the great confusion which exists on the sub- 
ject everywhere, by the apparent decay in the interest 
of thousands in any baptism at all, and by the fact that 
a position is needed upon which the coming unity of 
the Church of Christ may be consummated. The 
Church of Christ must do something. In the words 
of Dr. Andrews there are two things which we may do, 
(1) “We may return to the sacramentarian teaching of 
ot. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament,” 
or (2) “We may argue that sacramentarianism is not 
native to the soil of Christianity,’—in other words, we 
may explain it away. But do we want to explain it 
away? Is it necessary to explain it away? Is it not far 
more likely that in all the various forms of thought as 
to what baptism really is, and what it really does, and 
what it symbolizes, there is truth? May it not be, 
for instance, that in emphasizing the fact that it is 
a symbol a man may be right, and the only place where 
he is wrong is in contending that it is a symbol only? 

16 “The Death of Christ,’ Denney, p. 60. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 1538 


May it not be that after all there is a common ground 
upon which we can all meet, and that by emphasizing 
the whole meaning of baptism that ground may be 
found, rather than by us fiercely contending for one 
part or aspect of it? It is here, I believe, that the 
whole trouble has been. We have seen but one side 
of baptism. The symbolical interpreter has seen it 
only as a beautiful symbol without any real significance, 
while the purely sacramentarian has thought of what it 
does, and all too frequently has neglected its symbolical 
beauty and power. In the light of the conclusive New 
Testament teaching that baptism is related to the 
remission of sins, let us inquire, as far as it is pos- 
sible for us to know it, in what respect it thus stands 
related. 

I. Baptism is an initiatory act based upon a solemn 
command of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus firmly 
established upon his authority. 

This command is given in the last chapter of Mat- 
thew’s Gospel in the well-known words of the great 
commission, “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of 
all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 
28:19, 20). An objection is sometimes made that 
it is too much to base all our faith in the fact of bap- 
tism as a command upon this one verse. It is also 
urged that the earthly Jesus was not the one who gave 
the command, as, for example, he instituted the Sup- 
per, but that these words were supposed to have been 
spoken after the resurrection; therefore, their validity 
rests upon a previous faith in the resurrection, or pre- 
supposes that one believes in it before he could accept 
baptism. It is only necessary to reply that unless one 


154 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


believes in the glorified Lord, in the Jesus who was 
raised from the dead by the power of God, baptism 
will have no interest for him. Baptism has interest 
for those who believe that Jesus died, that he was 
buried, and that he rose again. It is significant that 
those who do not believe in the atonement of the 
Lord do not practice baptism or the Lord’s Supper. 
As to the position regarding the one verse, we can 
but reply that it is not necessary for a thing to be 
repeated over and over to make it valid. It was not 
necessary for the early Christians; they firmly believed 
that baptism was instituted by the divine authority of 
the Lord, and they preached it and practiced it as 
such. They at least had no doubt about the authority 
for their practice of the act. To them it was as we 
have described it, an initiatory act by which one became 
a member of the Church of the Lord, one based upon 
His solemn command. ‘The very fact that baptism is 
a command of Jesus connects it with the remission of 
sins, for Jesus commanded only those things which 
were essential to a man’s forgiveness. He was not 
imposing upon men requirements that were unneces- 
sary. Every condition which He laid down had a 
moral reason, a moral significance. Whenever, there- 
fore, we acknowledge that baptism is a command of the 
Lord Jesus, we at the same time acknowledge that 
obedience is necessary to salvation, for to “them that 
obey him he became the author of eternal salvation” 
Gilebs5 i). 

2. Baptism is a symbolic act,—a symbolic repre- 
sentation of the finished work of Christ for our re- 
demption and the soul’s experience in coming to Christ. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 155 


In the first Corinthian letter, Paul tells us that the 
great facts of the Gospel are three: the death of Christ 
for our sins, His burial in the new tomb, and His resur- 
rection from the dead on the third day (I Cor. 
15:1-5). In the Roman letter he describes the sym- 
bolic meaning of baptism when he says, “Or are ye 
ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ 
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, 
therefore, with him through baptism into death: that 
like as Christ was raised from the dead through the 
glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness 
of life. For if we have become united with him in the 
likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness 
of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:3-5). What a wonder- 
ful symbolism he here describes! The three facts of 
the Gospel which make it a gospel of forgiveness are 
that Christ died and was buried and rose again from 
the dead. In baptism, the penitent believer, he who has 
died to sin, he who through the word of the Holy 
Spirit of God has experienced faith, and therefore the 
change of heart, is buried in a symbolical burial. To 
all intents he is dead. The breath ceases, the eyes are 
closed, he is apparently a dead man. As Jesus was 
buried in the grave in the garden, so this man, dead 
to sin, and dead symbolically, is buried in the baptismal 
waters. But Jesus did not remain in the tomb. We 
worship not a dead Saviour but a risen and glorified 
Lord. Jesus came forth from the grave into a glo- 
rious new life. So it is that the one who has died to 
sin and has been buried is now raised from the waters 
“in the likeness of his resurrection.” Here then is the 
true symbolism of baptism. Forsythe truly states it 


156 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


when he says that baptism ‘declared and enacted the 
whole Gospel and not merely an initiatory stage of it.” *” 
The symbolic schools have always been right in con- 
tending that baptism is a symbol; they have always 
been wrong in declaring that it is a symbol only, and 
in their understanding of what it symbolized. Dr. 
Candlish may be taken as representative of this school 
when he affirms that the “primary idea of baptism 
is the cleansing of the soul by washing.” ** With Dr. 
Candlish agree such men as Bruce and Holtzmann and 
a host of others who have been accustomed either to 
ignore all the verses which would appear in any way 
to suggest sacramentarianism, or to placidly assume 
that the views of the New Testament writers accorded 
with their own. To them, baptism is only a symbol, 
and a symbol of the cleansing of the soul by faith. 
Not only is it true that every New Testament writer 
who discusses the real character of baptism assigns 
another purpose to it, but there is not one who even 
suggests that baptism is a symbol of the cleansing of the 
soul. Baptism is a wonderfully suggestive symbol, 
but it was never a symbol of cleansing. It is a pic- 
torial representation of all that Christ did for our re- 
demption in His atonement on the cross, and of all that 
we do in coming to Him through our faith and re- 
pentance. Every conversion is a recapitulation of the 
experiences of Calvary. To be saved we must follow 
Jesus in death, burial and resurrection. 

3. Baptism is a monumental act in which the glo- 


17 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 179. 
18 “The Christian Salvation,’ Candlish, p. 148. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 157 


rious atoning work of Jesus is continually and lovingly 
commemorated. 

Here, indeed, is a living monument to the grandest 
facts in all the universe of God. Here in the baptism 
of men and women by the thousands every day is a 
witness to the fact that Jesus finished the work for 
our salvation, that He has accomplished it upon the 
cross. Every time one is baptized it is truly done 
“in memory of Him.” “It is always a monument and 
attestation of the burial and resurrection of the Lord. 
No one can sensibly contemplate one exhibition of it 
without remembering the burial of the Messiah, and 
His glorious resurrection by the power of the Father, 
for it is the administrator that raises from the watery 
grave the buried saint. With the vividness of sensible 
demonstration it strikes not only the eye but the heart 
of an intelligent spectator.” *® In its symbolic and 
monumental significance there is irrefutable argument 
for the practice now of the so-called form which was 
indisputably practiced in the New Testament age. Only 
the immersion of a penitent believer and the resurrec- 
tion of that believer from the waters can truly sym- 
bolize or portray the facts of death, burial and resur- 
rection. That this form was the only one practiced in 
the New Testament times is quite universally acknowl- 
edged. Forsythe says of the act, “that it was the form 
of a bath.” Even Dr. Candlish, though denying to 
baptism any other significance than a sign or seal of 
what has been already accomplished, acknowledges 
“that in some respects immersion would be the more 

19 “‘Campbell-Rice Debate,” p. 441. 


158 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


striking and impressive form.” °° It is difficult to un- 
derstand why great and good men who believe that 
New Testament baptism was a bath, that it was a burial 
and a resurrection, and that such a burial and resur- 
rection enacted to-day more truly symbolizes and is 
more truly monumental, should cling to substitutions 
which utterly fail to do the very things from the sym- 
bolic and monumental standpoint which baptism ought 
to do. It is far better to frankly acknowledge with 
the late Cardinal Gibbons that, while “for several cen- 
turies after the establishment of Christianity baptism 
was usually conferred by immersion, the practice of 
baptizing by affusion has prevailed in the Catholic 
Church, as this manner is attended by less incon- 
venience than baptism by immersion,” ** or with Dr. 
Candlish, who though admitting that immersion “is 
the ideal form of the ordinance,” yet denies that the 
mode is of significance, and say that those who prac- 
tice substitutions for this ideal ordinance should freely 
admit that they adopt sprinkling “‘because it is more 
convenient in our climate and our manners and 
customs.” 7? 

Surely it would be far more Christian to reverently 
practice the ‘ideal form of the ordinance” than to fol- 
low something as a substitute, which has no New Testa- 
ment symbolic or monumental significance, and to do 
this in the name of convenience. 

4. Baptism is a confessional act to which is at- 
tached the assurance of the forgiveness of sins. 

20 “The Christian Salvation,” Candlish, p. 146. 


21 “Faith of Our Fathers,’ Cardinal Gibbons, p. 266. 
22“The Christian Salvation,” p. 146. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 159 


Baptism is a confessional act. Previous to this 
obedience we have stood before men and have with 
our mouths confessed Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10: 9-10) ; 
in baptism that which we have confessed with our 
mouths is confessed in an act. And what is it that we 
confess? The answer is given in the burial and resur- 
rection which we experience as we go down into the 
water and are raised from it, in symbol of His burial 
and His resurrection. In this act we confess that we 
believe in the heart of the Gospel: that Jesus died; 
that He was buried; and that He was raised from the 
dead. “The baptism which receives the seal of sal- 
vation is a baptism in which the name of Christ is con- 
fessed as the only ground of salvation. The name of 
Christ stands for what He is. To acknowledge His 
name in baptism is openly to declare dependence upon 
Him alone for salvation.” 7° That confession which 
we made with the mouth, that confession in which we 
publicly came out before the world for all that Jesus 
is and means, is, in baptism, reenforced by a public 
act in which we symbolically reénact or recapitulate all 
the facts of Calvary, the tomb, and the resurrection 
morning. 

The psychological effect upon the soul of such an 
experience as baptism is readily apparent. It is a great 
crisis in the life. The way to Christ is ended; the life 
in Christ begins. All the stirrings of the incipient 
faith, the anguish of godly repentance, now burst forth 
in one great act of life committal, of public declara- 
tion. It was indeed “a confession of the yoke of Christ, 
amid circumstances of solemn excitement which crystal- 

23 “The Atonement, the Heart of the Gospel,’ Campbell, p. 190. 


160 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


lized ali the prior discipline in a soul’s life bond. It 
clinched the relation. The engaged to Christ should 
be married. The previous instruction, the personal 
dealings of the older Christians, and the gracious move- 
ments of the neophyte soul, all worked up to a definite 
public act. They were gathered to a burning point of 
open decision on a high wrought occasion, in an age 
when such a confession meant no small courage, oblo- 
quy, and peril. There was final committal. The soul 
entered into life possession of what it had before but 
known or felt. The smoldering tinder burst into 
flame. The effect of such an individual act, in a sym- 
pathetic society, on a solemn occasion, was great, de- 
cisive, fundamental. But it was not magical. It did 
not depend on learning, owning, or hearing certain 
forms of words. It was psychological. It was a cru- 
cial experience in the spirit. It was the moral crisis, in 
a loving and spiritual society, of a psychological prepa- 
ration maturing at a solemn moment which settled all 
the rest of life. It was the work of the Spirit.” * 
But let us note further the last part of the heading 
of this portion of our study. “Baptism is a confes- 
sional act to which is attached the assurance of the 
forgiveness of sins.”’?> Suppose we know no more 
than this about it. Do we not know enough? Sup- 
pose we are conscious only that the Word of God 
plainly teaches that when this act is performed, there 
is no longer anything between us and the remission of 
our sins. Are we not assured of the very thing we 
have long wanted to know? Whether we like it or not, 
there is no doubt at all but that the New Testament 


24“The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, pp. 187, 188. 
25 “The Atonement, the Heart of the Gospel,’”’ Campbell, p. 190. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 161 


writers and the New Testament Christians believed that 
in the act of baptism the certificate of remission was 
given. In this act, in some manner, the assurance was 
vouchsafed that they had entered into the realm where 
the saving power of the Lord Jesus operated and sins 
were done away. This was the conviction of Peter 
when to the Pentecostians he said, “Repent ye and be 
baptized for the remission of your sins” (Acts 2: 38), 
or of Ananias when he commanded Saul to arise and 
be baptized “and wash away” his sins. The seal of 
salvation was affixed when the believing penitent con- 
fessed his faith and repentance in an act which at the 
same time was a confession of all that the atonement of 
the Lord on the cross meant to his soul. It is signifi- 
cant once more to call to mind the fact that those so- 
called religious bodies which to-day deny to Jesus the 
place ascribed to Him in the New Testament writings, 
never practice baptism or the Lord’s Supper. The 
reason for this, as we have before noted, is that they 
do not wish to confess what baptism and the Lord’s 
Supper confesses, that Jesus is Lord and Christ by 
virtue of what He did on Calvary. 

5. Baptism is a translational act by which we are 
translated out of the power of darkness into the king- 
dom of God’s dear Son (Col. 1:13). 

(a) It is an act indissolubly connected with the: 
procuring cause of our salvation; an act based upon 
the atonement of Christ. 

Baptism is connected with the atonement as effect 
is with cause. Without the atonement there would 
never have been any baptism. All of its meaning comes 
from what Jesus did as a finished work on the cross. 


162 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


In our present study, we have been trying to come to 
the solution of the one real problem of a religious na- 
ture in the world, the forgiveness of sins. There are 
three things which are always connected in the circle of 
New Testament ideas, and so closely connected are they 
that one cannot be thought of apart from the other 
two,—the death of Christ, baptism, and the remission 
of sins. In all the sermons preached in New Testa- 
ment times, there was one mighty refrain: the remis- 
sion of sins. “This prominence given to the remission 
of sins is not accidental, and must not be separated 
from the context essential to it in Christianity. It is 
a part of a whole or system of ideas, and parts which 
belong to the same whole with it in the New Testament 
are baptism and the death of Christ. It does not seem 
to me in the least illegitimate, but on the contrary both 
natural and necessary, to take all these references to 
the forgiveness of sins and to baptism as references at 
the same time to the saving significance (in relation to 
sin) to the death of Jesus.’”’** These noble words of 
one of the world’s greatest Christian teachers are a 
clear expression of a fact readily recognizable, namely, 
that there is in New Testament language and ideas al- 
ways a connection between baptism, the death of 
Christ, and the remission of sins. “It is not a suf- 
ficient answer to say that the connection of ideas as- 
serted here between the forgiveness of sins or baptism 
on the one hand, and the death of Jesus on the other, 
is not explicit; it is self-evident to any one who be- 
lieves there is such a thing as Christianity as a whole, 
and that it is coherent and consistent with itself, and 


26“The Death of Christ,” Denney, p. 59. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 163 


who reads with a Christian mind.” The dignity and 
beauty of baptism will be more and more appreciated 
as we recognize the undeniable fact that it is always 
associated with the very heart of the Gospel. The 
necessity of its observance in the spirit of its New 
Testament environment will be impressed upon us as 
we remember that it derives all its significance from 
the passion of Him “who was made sin for us.” *” It 
can never degenerate into a mere meaningless symbol as 
long as we remember that it is based upon the finished 
work of Him who hung between the darkening heavens 
and the trembling earth for our salvation. This was 
the attitude of the New Testament Christians toward 
the act, for “every Christian knew that in baptism 
what his mind was directed to, in connection with the 
blessing of forgiveness, was the death of Christ. Both 
sacraments, therefore, are memorials of the death, and 
it is not due to any sacramentarian tendency in Luke, 
but only brings out the place which the death of Christ 
had at the basis of the Christian religion, as the con- 
dition of the forgiveness of sins, when he gives the 
sacramental side of Christianity the prominence it has 
in the early chapters of Acts. From the New Testa- 
ment point of view the sacraments contain the Gospel 
in brief; they contain it in inseparable connection with 
the death of Jesus; and as long as they hold their place 
in the Church, the saving significance of that death has 
a witness which will not be easy to dispute.” *° 

A very interesting study of some of the New Testa- 
ment references reveals the relationship between the 


27 “‘The Death of Christ,’ Denney, p. 58. 
28 [bid., pp. 59-61. 


164 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


blood of our Saviour and the remission of sins. “Tf 
we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fel- 
lowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7). Here 
is the indisputable affirmation that we are cleansed from 
our sins by the blood of Christ. In the same strain 
writes Paul, “In whom we have redemption through his 
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph. 1:7). 
It is needless to multiply scriptural references. It 
is universally acknowledged that according to its New 
Testament conception forgiveness is only in the blood 
of the Lord Jesus. But there are other statements 
which seemingly refer to remission of sins by other 
means. Note the words of Peter on Pentecost in the 
verse which we have often used in this discussion: 
“Repent ye, and be baptized, every one of you in the 
name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins’ 
(Acts 2:38). Here we are told that we come to the 
remission of sins through repentance and baptism. 
The words of Ananias to Saul are the same in mean- 
ing, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.” 
Here sins are to be washed away in baptism. In the 
Revelation John says, “He loosed [or washed] us 
from our sins by his blood” (Rev. 1:5). Here then 
we have the following conclusion: 

(1) We have remission in blood. We have remis- 
sion in repentance and baptism. 

(2) We are washed from sin in blood. We are 
loosed or washed from sin in baptism. 

Since the blood of our Lord and repentance and 
baptism are for the same thing, the remission of sins, 
they must in some way be inseparably connected. This 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 165 


connection we have affirmed all through the present 
discussion. Can we discover just what it is? In his 
letter to the Romans Paul gives us the answer, “Or are 
ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ 
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried 
therefore with him through baptism into death” (Rom. 
6:3,4). In His death upon the cross our Lord shed 
His precious blood. In baptism, the penitent believer 
in Christ comes into (is baptized into) His death. In 
baptism, therefore, he comes into all the cleansing or 
washing which the death of Jesus brings. Just what 
that is we will consider later. It is sufficient here to 
notice that in the New Testament there is always a re- 
lation between the blood of Jesus, the act of baptism, 
and the forgiveness of sins. It will forever be impos- 
sible to divorce baptism from the death of Jesus. The 
Lord has placed it in that connection, and only when 
men cease to believe that Christ died for our sins will 
they cease to baptize for the remission of sins. 

(b) It should also be remembered, in considering 
baptism as a translational act, that it is a real act, one 
in which something is done for us and to us. 

There is always a danger of baptism degenerating 
into two extreme positions. In one direction it de- 
generates into an act of magic, where the sinner is 
saved in a magical manner; in the other it fades away 
into a mere symbolism in which there is no sacramen- 
tal meaning at all. Many have fallen into these errors. 
The truth (as so often is the case) lies just about half- 
way between the two. Baptism is a symbol, and as 
such we have considered it. But it is more than a 
symbol; it is an act, a very real act, in which some- 


166 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


thing definite and wonderful is done to and for the 
one baptized. It is well for a moment to consider the 
meaning of the unscriptural word, sacrament. Of the 
many definitions that have been given, Cave’s is the 
best: “A sacrament is a means of grace, an instrument 
in the hands of the divine mercy for effecting that 
which no instrument could effect by its inherent power, 
—a material channel for a spiritual blessing.” ?® Hold 
fast this definition, especially the last part of it. 

It is also necessary that we understand just what 
is meant by forgiveness before we can understand just 
how baptism, by bringing us into the death of Jesus, 
brings us to the remission of sins. The popular idea 
of forgiveness is that it is something which takes place 
inside the heart of the believer. “It is regarded as 
an inward experience, a matter of consciousness; and 
men are taught to look within themselves for the evi- 
dence of it, and to find that evidence in the state of 
joy which immediately succeeds it. To one who. has 
had this conception of the remission of sins and of the 
agency by which it is brought about, it must neces- 
sarily appear absurd to suppose that it is in any way 
dependent on baptism, unless, with the Romanists, we 
attach to baptism some kind of magical power to ef- 
fect a change of soul.” °° But this idea of the remis- 
sion of sins is nowhere found in the New Testament. 
It is not only unscriptural, but it is the very idea which 
has been productive of practically all the division in 
the church of God on the subject of the design of bap- 
tism. Had this been perfectly understood, it is doubt- 


29 “The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice,” Cave, p. 459. 
30 “Commentary on Acts,” McGarvey, p. 243. 


pie 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 167 


ful if there had been divisions about baptism and the 
remission of sins. The Scriptures always distinguish 
between repentance and the remission of sins; “the 
latter is constantly assumed to be consequent upon the 
former and not included in it.” ** Repentance is an 
inward experience, like faith is an inward experience; 
remission of sins is something which takes place out- 
side the soul of the penitent one. Such expressions as 
“repentance and remission of sins” or “the baptism of 
repentance unto the remission of sins,’’ or once more 
the words of Peter, “Repent ye, and be baptized, every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the re- 
mission of your sins,” all show that there is a differ- 
ence between the inward experience of repenting and 
the act in which the remission of sins is vouchsafed. 
“Here is not only a very marked distinction between 
the two, but remission of sins is most clearly set forth 
as subsequent to repentance.” °° 

The meaning of the word ddeorg translated “remis- 
sion” further disproves the theory that remission is 
a subjective experience. It means, primarily, “to re- 
lease, as from bondage, or prison, etc.” Its secondary 
meaning when referring to sins is “forgiveness, par- 
don of sins, letting them go as if they had never been 
committed.” Forgiveness or remission, then, is some- 
thing which takes place in the mind of him who for- 
gives, and not within the soul of the one forgiven. It 
can only be known to the one forgiven, as he who for- 
gives communicates the fact through some medium of 
communication. In the case of our forgiveness by 


31 “Commentary on Acts,’”? McGarvey, p. 244. 
82 Ibid., p. 245. 


168 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


the Father, it is “an act of the divine mind and not a 
change within the sinner himself. Further, it is an 
act which, from its very nature, cannot take place until 
there has already occurred within the sinner such a 
change of heart and purpose as can make it proper in 
God, even on the atonement in Christ, to extend par- 
don. In other words, the whole inward change which 
the sinner is required to undergo must take place before 
sin can be forgiven.” ** When this is properly under- 
stood, the apparent absurdity of connecting the remis- 
sion of sins with baptism is removed. Practically all 
Christians, with the exception of those who belong ‘to 
Rome, are convinced that justification is by faith. 
However, it is not taught that justification is by faith 
alone. This we have considered at length before. 
That justification, which involves also the remission of 
sins, is dependent upon faith as a condition, yet if jus- 
tification is withheld until that faith has objectified 
itself or manifested itself in some outward act, the sin- 
ner is still justified by faith. It is faith, however, in 
action, and not merely faith as a state of mind. As 
long as faith lies hidden in the heart, it has no saving 
power. It is only as it comes forth in action that it 
is living or saving faith. 

A study of certain scriptural passages will empha- 
size the position of baptism as a real act in which we 
are translated into a new state or relationship. We 
are baptized “into the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), 
“into Christ” (Gal. 3:27), “into his death” (Rom. 
6:4, 5), “into the remission of sins’ (Acts 2:38). 


33 “Commentary on Acts,” McGarvey, p. 245. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 169 


In all these statements there is clearly indicated a change 
of state or relationship. We are translated by the act 
of baptism from one position to another. We are bap- 
tized “into the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Spirit.” “The subject is here repre- 
sented as in some way entering into the name, or into 
the persons represented by the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit. This may be supposed to resemble an act of 
naturalization, in the fact that a person in that process 
is inducted into the possession of the rights of citizen- 
ship under a political institution. So Christ com- 
manded the candidates to be immersed into the name 
of the whole Divinity, that is, into the privileges and 
immunities of the new kingdom over which the Mes- 
siah now presides, by the authority of the Father 
through the Holy Spirit. It is, then, a solemn and 
sacred enfranchisement of a believer with all the rights 
and privileges of Christ’s kingdom.” ** There is thus 
in New Testament teaching no reference at all to 
baptism into a subjective experience whereby magic 
cleanses a man from sin. This would be baptismal re- 
generation, to which all Christian men must object. 
The change which baptism brings is a change of state 
purely, in which a man is translated out of the un- 
forgiven state into Christ, “into the sphere in which 
His saving power operates.” *° 

A beautiful emphasis has been given to the change 
of relation which baptism accomplishes by the study 
of the word in some of the papyri. These have shown 
“that where the phrase ‘baptized into’ occurs (e.g., Acts 


34 “Campbell-Rice Debate,” p. 441. 
35 “The Atonement, the Heart of the Gospel,’ Campbell, p. 190. 


170 STUDIES IN- FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


9:16; 19:5; Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27) that the person 
baptized becomes the personal property of the divine 
Person indicated.” °° ‘The person baptized is no longer 
his own, “he has been bought with a price,” he is from 
this time on a dodA0c, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. 
The act of obedience is a formal act in which some- 
thing is done for us, an act in which the penitent be- 
liever, one who has experienced a change of heart 
through faith and repentance, is translated into Christ 
in whom, alone, there is remission of sin,—that act of 
obedience is baptism* for the remission of sins. 

Let us refer for a moment to the meaning of a sac- 
rament as defined above. It was defined as “a mate- 
rial channel for a spiritual blessing.” Of its own in- 
herent power it can effect nothing; it is efficacious only 
as it is used in the hands of divine mercy. Through it 
God works our advantage. In this sense baptism is 
a sacrament. Of itself it can do nothing. Only as 
through it God works our salvation is it of advantage 
to us. And through it and in it we come to the death 
of Christ, so that it may be said that we were baptized 
into His death. In this act Christ makes over to us, 
assigns to us, all that His death means in saving power. 
Forsythe gives a splendid illustration. Think of two 
things, a word and the thought which it conveys. “A 
spoken word is the symbol or vehicle of a thought, but 
it is also the thought itself in action.” °” Baptism is 
the symbol, but it also conveys to us the death of 
Christ, as at the same time it conveys us into the death 
of our Lord. For baptism is not only a symbol, but 

36 Dr. outer, quoted by Cobern in “The New Archeological Dis- 


coveries,” p. 229 
387 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 222. 


se i i 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 171 


as the word is the thought in action, so baptism is the 
death of Christ in action, a real thing in that through 
it Christ conveys or makes over to us all that His death 
means. 

(3) If we may consider baptism as a translational 
act, from another standpoint we may say that it is the 
sacrament of the new birth, and regenerates in the 
same manner as birth gives life in the physical world. 

In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus con- 
nects regeneration with the birth of (or out of, é ) the 
water, or baptism. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ex- 
cept one be born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). A brief 
definition of regeneration will help us to understand 
better the relation of baptism to it. “The beginning 
of the divine life, being an entrance into personal union 
and fellowship with Christ, and so with God, is a moral 
change; it is a change of character and ruling disposi- 
tion. It is not a gift of new faculties, or the creation 
of something additional in a man, but an awakening of 
new dispositions which prepare him for fellowship with 
God. And since the new life of divine fellowship is 
a life of holy love, the beginning of the new life con- 
sists in the awakening of holy love in the soul. But this 
thought must be added,—that this change is wrought 
by God, and consists of His own impartation of His 
own character.” ** The same author briefly defines re- 
generation in another sentence: “Hence regeneration 
may be defined as that work of the Holy Spirit in a 
man by which a new life of holy love, like the life of 


38 “An Outline of Christian Theology,” Clarke, p. 376. 


172 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


God, is initiated.” °° Now it can readily be seen that 
the act of baptism as such cannot for a moment re- 
generate in the sense in which we have just defined re- 
generation. It cannot and does not impart a holy love 
to the soul. The act itself cannot in a magical man- 
ner reproduce in the soul of the sinner a Godlike life. 
That life is produced only by the Holy Spirit through 
whom we are begotten. To be born of water and the 
Spirit means to be born of water and begotten by the 
Spirit. We say that a man is born of his father and 
his mother. But no‘man is born of the father. He is 
born of the mother, and begotten of the father. Hence 
the word éyévatw@ in the new versions is correctly 
translated, begotten, for we are begotten of the Father 
through His Holy Spirit. The Spirit uses the word 
which He has inspired. This is the meaning of that 
statement in I Peter, “Having been begotten again, not 
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, the word of 
God, which liveth and abideth forever” (I Pet. 1: 23). 
James speaks in the same vein, “Of his own will he 
brought us forth (or begat us) by the word of truth” 
(James 1:18). Faith and repentance are brought to 
being in the heart through the word of truth, for “be- 
lief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of 
Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Faith cleanses the soul, for 
in the words of Peter, as he spake of God’s dealings 
with the Gentiles, “He hath made no distinction be- 
tween us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith” 
(Acts 15:9). When faith comes through the hearing 
of the word of Christ, the new life has been begotten 
in the soul, the believer is now begotten of God. John 


39 ““An Outline of Christian Theology,” Clarke, pp. 396, 397. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 173 


confidently affirms this to be true when he says, “Who- 
soever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of 
God” (I John 5:1). The new life then is not begun 
in the soul in the act of baptism. In this sense it can 
never regenerate. Baptism as an act is the act of 
birth, as we have been studying it, an act of transla- 
tion. Birth does not give life; it translates that which 
was begotten through the Spirit into fuller and freer 
action. And yet, there is a sense in which baptism does 
regenerate,—not an ontological but a psychological 
sense. Unless that which is begotten is born, it will die. 
Birth, therefore, is essential to its continued existence. 
Unless that which is spiritually begotten is born, it will 
die. One of the best-known laws of our psychological 
world is the one which demands that we act vigorously 
upon every good resolve or good resolution itself will 
die. Unless, therefore, the faith which is begotten 
through the word comes out in act, unless it objectifies 
itself, it will perish, and in dying will compass the death 
spiritually of the one in whom it was begotten. Bap- 
tism stands related to the spiritual life as birth does to 
the physical life. ‘So the gifts of word and sacrament 
are the same,—forgiveness and regeneration, newness 
of life and desire. The difference is not in matter but 
in form. It is psychological rather than ontological. 
New Testament baptism was a relative goal, a crisis, 
a committal crowning the preparation by the Word. 
It was the recognition of spiritual adultness.” *° 

But there is another thought without which it is im- 
possible for us to realize just how baptism is related 
to the remission of sins as a translational act. We are 


40 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 190. 


174 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


not only born out of one condition, we are also born 
into another. In physical life we are born out of the 
womb of the mother into the family. In baptism we are 
not only born out of the old life of sin, but we are 
born into the family of Christ. It is in this sense that 
“it is the sacrament of regeneration; which, however, it 
does not produce, but richly conveys by our personal 
adoption into its home.’ ** Only as we come as babes 
into the new home where there is care and nurture will 
the new life grow and thrive; and only as we rise from 
the old life of sin*into the family life which is in 
Christ will there be true regeneration. As an act 
“baptism does stamp the Church as distinct from the 
world. And it does say that the soul can never come 
to its true Christian self and take home the baptismal 
gift, except in the Christian society. We cannot think 
of regeneration apart from a church. By this visible 
incorporation of the individual into the community 
(and so far into Christ) it makes a practical declara- 
tion of a new birth as a foundation of the New Hu- 
manity.”’ 

Truly, then, all our division in the matter of the de- 
sign of baptism can so easily be healed if we will but 
take baptism in its New Testament significance. It 
is, above all things else, an act of translation, and as 
such is forever related to the remission of sins. We 
can preach it for the remission of sins as the early 
Apostles and evangelists preached it, for it does bring 
the prepared soul out of darkness into that realm where 
alone the saving power of the Lord Jesus is effective. 


41 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 196. 
42 Tbid., p. 194. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 175 


We must not “seek an effect on the soul outside the 
psychological effect.” ** The preparation of the heart 
has been accomplished through the word. “The Word 
begins the process which baptism seals and sets, as at 
a certain age a boy becomes a youth with all that im- 
plies in social sensibility and new relations.” ** 


III. WE CAN BUT BRIEFLY NOTICE THE RELATION BE- 
TWEEN THE PRACTICE OF SO-CALLED INFANT 
BAPTISM AND THE CONCLUSIONS WHICH OUR 
STUDY HAVE FORCED UPON US 


It should be borne in mind, first of all, that there is 
no such thing in the New Testament as infant baptism. 
Since baptism was always a matter of faith, and upon 
a profession of faith, it was not even thought of by 
the New Testament writers. In commenting upon 
Romans 6:4, 5, Dr. Denney, in his last and noblest 
work, says, “The whole difficulty of understanding the 
passage has arisen from the fact that baptism has been 
taken in it, as if it were a thing in itself, whereas the 
only baptism known to the Apostolic Church, and there- 
fore the baptism here spoken of, was that of believers 
solemnly and publicly declaring their faith in Christ. 
The death and resurrection with Christ are not in the 
rite of baptism, apart from faith, and with a view to 
the experience of them by faith; they are in the Gospel 
to begin with, and in the rite only through the faith 
which accepts the Gospel.” *° A little further on in 
the same work he says, “The prime necessity is to re- 

43 Ibid., p. 192. 


44 Ibid., p. 192. 
45 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,’ Denney, p. 316. 


176 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


member that the baptism of those days was the bap- 
tism of believers, and that the occasion on which the 
believer made public and solemn confession of his 
faith in baptism, calling upon the name of the Lord, 
and renouncing the life which he had hitherto lived, 
was normally an occasion of high and serious emo- 
tion.” *® Since the baptism of the New Testament was 
always the baptism of believers, and, as we have dis- 
covered in our study, for the remission of sins, it is 
not to be wondered at that the early Christians never 
even thought of applying it to infants. While be- 
lieving that baptism of infants is to be found in prin- 
ciple in the New Testament (though he gives no refer- 
ences from the New Testament to substantiate his 
position), Dr. Forsythe says, ‘Most that I have said 
about the regenerative effect of baptism applies directly 
only to adult baptism. We have no other in the New 
Testament, as in other mission stages of the church.” “7 
Dr. Andrews (“The Place of the Sacraments in the 
Teaching of Paul’) is even more emphatic when he 
says, “There is no shred of real proof that baptism 
was ever administered to infants in the apostolic 
age.” ** To the mass of testimony of modern scholar- 
ship, Dr. Stevens adds his word, “It is not probable 
that the baptism of infant children was practiced in 
Paul’s time, or that the subject of its grounds or pro- 
priety was even considered by him.” *° After a bril- 
liant exposition of the relationship existing between 
faith and baptism, and also a declaration of the New 


46 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,’ Denney, p. 318. 
47 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 198. 

48 Tbid., p. 150. 

49“‘The Pauline Theology,” Stevens, p. 334. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 177 


Testament teaching, that in the act of baptism the 
Holy Spirit was given, Dr. Denney says, “The general 
practice of infant baptism has made it difficult to apply 
this circle of ideas in the modern church. When be- 
lieving men, confessing their faith in baptism, were 
said in the apostolic age to receive the Holy Spirit, it 
meant that they had religious experiences of a power- 
ful and moving character, due to Jesus and their faith 
in Him, and to the whole circumstances in which it was 
declared. But no part of this has any application 
whatever to the baptism of unconscious infants, and to 
speak of their regeneration by the Spirit in baptism 
is to use language which has no relation to the New 
Testament facts,—language which neither has nor ever 
can have any intelligible meaning.” °° If infant bap- 
tism, then, has no basis in the New Testament, it is 
upon those who believe in it and practice it to write 
the long articles in its defense. The affirmative in any 
such discussion belongs to those who by their practice 
of it have laid upon themselves the burden of its jus- 
tification. 

Now it should be remembered that if the conclusions 
of our study are correct, and baptism is related to 
the death of Christ, and through that death to the 
remission of sins, it cannot in any possible manner have 
anything to do with infants. This is what we have 
been trying to say all the way along. It is what all 
the best New Testament scholars of our time are say- 
ing. We have quoted often from Dr. Denney. Note 
him once more, “Baptism has always in view, as part 


50 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,’ Denney, p. 319. 


178 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


at least of its significance, the forgiveness of sins; and 
as the rite which marks the believer’s initiation into the 
new covenant, it is essentially related to the act on 
which the covenant is based, namely, that which Paul 
delivered first of all to the church, that Christ died 
for our sins.” °* If the relationship between the death 
of Jesus, baptism, and the remission of sins is the re- 
lationship which we find always obtaining in the world 
of New Testament ideas, then infant baptism has no 
foundation either in word or principle. It is only, 
therefore, by asstgning to baptism a purpose other 
than that which we universally find assigned to it in the 
New Testament, that we can find warrant for the bap- 
tism of infants. Dr. Candlish recognizes this truth 
when, after sharply criticizing some of the bases upon 
which infant baptism has been supposed to rest, he 
says, “The truth is that all these theories are vitiated 
by the retention in some form or another of the idea 
of baptismal regeneration, whereas it is not until we 
are entirely rid of all notions of the outward act hav- 
ing any such efficacy, and regard it simply as a sign 
and seal of the renewing wrought by the direct agency 
of the Spirit, that we can perceive the reason and pro- 
priety of its administration to the infant children of 
professing Christians.” °? Dr. Candlish does not ac- 
cept baptism in its indisputable New Testament sig- 
nificance, as we have found it universally exhibited. 
He believes that baptism is purely a symbol, and that 
we are not Christians because of anything of transla- 


51 “‘The Death of Christ,” Denney, p. 97. 
52 “The Christian Salvation,” Candlish, pp. 162, 163. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 179 


tional power in the act. With him the act has no 
sacramental meaning at all. To quote him again: 
“Thus the right of infants of professing Christians 
to be regarded as members of the church depends not 
on their baptism, nor on any profession or promises 
made on their behalf, but on their birth of believers; 
and they receive baptism, not that they may be made 
holy, or dedicated to God, or admitted to the church, 
but because they are already holy (I Cor. 7:14), and 
members of the church visible, in virtue of their being 
children of believers.” °? In other words, we are born 
into the church. The regeneration of our fathers has 
made us regenerated beings. It is difficult to believe 
that such words were written seriously. Doubtless, 
courtesy must make us believe they were, but we can- 
not help but see in them the hard straits to which 
great scholars now and then are put to to defend un- 
scriptural practices in the name of denominational prej- 
udices. The point in which we are here interested is 
the fact that any defense of infant baptism to have 
any hope of success at all must ignore the New Testa- 
ment meaning of the act. It cannot be shown that in- 
fants are sinners, or that baptism as such apart from 
faith and repentance could in any sense be for the 
remission of sins. Since an infant is not a sinner, and 
since he cannot believe and does not need to repent, 
there is no New Testament sense at all in which bap- 
tism can be applied to him. 
538 “The Christian Salvation,’ Candlish, pp. 163, 164. 


180 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


IV. THERE ARE TWO CONCLUSIONS WHICH NECES- 
SARILY FORCE THEMSELVES UPON US FROM OUR 
STUDY OF THE RELATION OF BAPTISM TO THE 
REMISSION OF SINS 


1. Baptism to the modern man will stand or fall 
in proportion as he receives or rejects its New Testa- 
ment significance. 

As long as the atonement of Christ is the heart of 
the Gospel, and baptism is received as being funda- 
mentally connected with that atonement, it will endure 
in the Church. If baptism is considered merely a 
symbol, having no vital connection at all with the 
fundamental things of the Gospel, it will in time be 
relegated to the scrap heap to which a progressive 
generation consigns its outgrown doctrines. It is 
evident, then, that the fundamental thing about bap- 
tism is its significance. What is it for? This is the 
question. If it be not related inextricably to the very 
heart of Christianity, then the sooner we throw it aside 
the better. What right have we to do in the name of 
Christ that which has no divine significance? To re- 
tain Baptism, then, the Church of to-day must accept 
it as the New Testament Church accepted it; its per- 
petuity depends upon this. 

2. An acceptance of the indisputable New Testa- 
ment position regarding baptism and the remission of 
sins will resolve into harmony all our present-day divi- 
sions on the subject. 

Undoubtedly here is the key. It seems to me that 
Dr. Andrews creates an unnecessary dilemma when 
he refers to the impossible dualism in Paulinism, con- 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 181 


sisting of spiritual and sacramental elements. While 
acknowledging that the New Testament writers uni- 
versally believe baptism to be for the remission of 
sins, yet he writes, ‘““We cannot live on a faith that is 
split up into two unconnected halves. We cannot 
travel at one and the same time along two parallel roads 
that never meet. We can never abandon the spiritual 
side of Paulinism. It is ‘bone of our bone and flesh of 
our flesh.’ It is woven into the very tissue of our 
spiritual life. It is the faith in which we live and move 
and have our being. Before we can accept the sac- 
ramentarian position we must accomplish what Weinel 
regards as an absolute impossibility, we must discover 
the higher unity which combines the two apparently an- 
tagonistic strains of thought into an intelligible har- 
mony.” °** But are there “two antagonistic strains of 
thought”? Is it not probable that that harmony al- 
ready exists and that there is difficulty simply because 
of our interpretation of both the spiritual and the 
so-called sacramental sides of Paulinism? If we 
meant by sacramentarianism that baptism considered 
alone, as an act apart from faith and repentance, re- 
generates in the sense that it gives the sinner a new 
heart, then surely there could be no harmony with the 
acknowledged spiritual elements of the teaching of 
the great apostle. But Paul never considered baptism 
in that sense. To him it was not merely a physical 
act; it was a great spiritual act, the culmination of a 
great spiritual struggle in which the soul threw itself 
unreservedly upon the love of Christ. It was the 
spiritual act by which the penitent believer was “trans- 
54“The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 156. 


182 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


lated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom 
of God’s dear Son” (Col. 1:13). There is not one 
shred of evidence in the New Testament that Paul or 
any other writer ever believed that baptism regenerated 
as an act of magic. With all, it is a spiritual act 
through which the believer comes into covenant rela- 
tionship with the blood of Christ, into the realm 
where the saving power of the Lord operates. Here, 
then, is the unity desired, in a whole-hearted accept- 
ance of the plain sense of the New Testament Scrip- 
tures, ’ 

The divisions about the so-called form of baptism 
must also be settled in the last analysis, in the light of 
the relation of baptism to the remission of sins. Its 
symbolic meaning grows out of that relationship. This 
we have already considered at length. Dr. Denney, 
in his usual brilliant manner, speaks of this meaning 
of the ordinance: “But this symbolism of washing or 
cleansing is not the one of which Paul makes use in 
Romans 6. What he speaks of is being baptized into 
Christ, or, to put it as strongly and vividly as possible, 
death and burial with Him; the immersion represents 
resurrection with Christ, rising from the dead with Him 
to walk in newness of life. It is because this is what 
baptism means, and because all Christians have been 
baptized, that to live on deliberately in sin is for the 
Christian an inconceivable, self-contradictory, and im- 
possible course.”’ °° When we realize this New Testa- 
ment symbolism, there is but one form of baptism, and 
that the form which shows forth a burial and a resur- 
rection. About this form there has never been any de- 


55 “The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,” Denney, p. 315. 


BAPTISM AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS 183 


bate; the division has been occasioned by the intro- 
duction of other so-called forms in the name of con- 
venience. A return to the New Testament meaning of 
baptism will bring about a return to its manifestly New 
Testament form. It is significant that much of the 
confusion about the meaning of the sacred ordinance 
is due to this very substitution of other forms for that 
which was commanded. 

In the light of the fact of baptism for the remis- 
sion of sins must we settle the division regarding in- 
fant baptism. The early fathers, understanding that 
baptism had this meaning in the New Testament 
church, tried to make out that infants were in some 
manner saved from their sins in the act, thus keeping 
intact the Christian sense. Origen says, “Infants are 
baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Of what sins? 
Or when have they sinned? Or how can the reason of 
the laver hold good in their case? According to that 
sense we have mentioned, even now none is free from 
the pollution, though his life be but the length of one 
day upon the earth. And it is for that reason, be- 
cause by the sacrament of baptism the pollution of 
our birth is taken away, that we are baptized.” °° The 
absurdity of this position was too manifest, and as the 
years passed, other means of justification for the prac- 
tice were invented. But as far as the ground upon 
which the question is to be settled is concerned, Origen 
was right. There is but one way to retain infant bap- 
tism in the Church; to show that infants are sinners, 
and that in some way or another without faith or re- 
pentance baptism brings about remission of their sins. 


56 “The History of Infant Baptism,” Wall, pp. 204, 205. 


184 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


This, however, would be pure magic, the kind of bap- 
tismal regeneration to which every modern Christian 
must vociferously object. If we accept the New Tes- 
tament meaning of baptism, there is an end of the 
practice of applying it to infants. If Christ and the 
New Testament, His revealed message, to us be the 
seat of authority, then the question can be easily set- 
tled; if it is not, we are in darkness, without light 
at all. 


CHARTER Vi 


MiB LORD'S SUPPER AND?#THE HORS 
GIVENESS GOR SINS 


Text :—“‘And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, 
and blessed it and brake it; and gave it to his disciples, 
and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the 
cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: 
Drink ye all of it; for it is my blood of the covenant, 
which is poured out for many unto the remission of 
sins’ (Matt. 26: 26-28). 


Is the Lord’s Supper related to the remission of 
sins? In these verses, our Lord, without a doubt, 
identifies the institution with the procuring cause of 
the remission of our trespasses, when He says that the 
cup is His “blood of the covenant which is poured out 
for many unto the remission of sins.” As we have 
already said of baptism, so we can say with equal 
force of the Lord’s Supper, that if it is not vitally 
connected with the fundamentals of the faith, it will in 
time be discarded by a generation which demands that 
everything in religion have a moral reason for its ex- 
istence. In our study of baptism as related to the for- 
giveness of sins, we found it to be a universal New 
Testament teaching that it is related to the remission 
of sins, because it brings us into the death of Christ 
or into the sphere where the saving power of that 


death operates. In other words, there is no under- 
185 


186 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


standing the act of baptism at all, apart from the death 
of Christ. The same contention must be made in 
regard to the Lord’s Supper.. The fact of the matter 
is that both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are forms 
“into which we may put as much of the Gospel as 
they will carry; and St. Paul, for his part, practically 
puts the whole of his Gospel into each. If baptism 
is relative to the forgiveness of sins, so is the Sup- 
per. We are not only baptized into one body [I Cor. 
12:13], but because there is one bread, we, as many 
as partake of it, are’one body [I Cor, 10: 17).) oi 
baptism is relative to a new life in Christ [Rom. 
6:4], in the Supper, Christ himself is the meat and 
drink by which the new life is sustained [I Cor. 10: 3]. 
And in both sacraments, the Christ to whom we enter 
into relation is Christ who died; we are baptized into 
His death in one, we proclaim His death to the end of 
time in the other.” | 

The question with which we began this discussion 
must undoubtedly be answered in the affirmative. The 
Lord’s Supper does have to do with the remission of 
sins, because it has to do with the death of Christ. 
To this fact it owes its presence and power in the life 
of the Church of to-day. In the significance to faith 
of this connection, we will concern ourselves later; it 
is sufficient now to note the connection as a fact sub- 
stantiated by all the New Testament teaching upon the 
subject. 

There can be no doubt that Gospel music holds a 
permanent position in the worship of the Christian re- 
ligion. What could we do without it? Truly, there 
are emotional and inspirational depths which can be 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 187 


sounded only through the glories of a Gospel hymn. 
How vital, also, to the existence of the spiritual life 
are the messages in word, as they come Lord’s Day 
after Lord’s Day from the preacher. But transcend- 
ing every other act of worship on the part of the 
Christian is the act in which all the realities of the 
Gospel of the Lord are kept before him in symbolism. 
In a word, a proper understanding of the Lord’s Sup- 
per in its relation to our forgiveness is absolutely 
necessary to that growth in spiritual life, which every 
true Christian so earnestly desires. It is of solemn 
importance, therefore, that occasionally we advert to 
a re-study of this sacred theme. 

In the present chapter, we will consider, first of all, 
the New Testament teaching concerning the Lord’s 
Supper, and. secondly, we will briefly review some of 
the theories of the institution as they are held in the 
churches at the present time, and lastly, in order that 
the New Testament position may be thrown more 
clearly into the light, we will attempt a constructive 
statement of the doctrine as taught in the Word. 


I. THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING REGARDING THE 
LORD’S SUPPER. 


1. Consider, first, the teaching regarding its insti- 
tution. 

We are aware of the fact that the beginning of 
the Lord’s Supper has been a matter of great con- 
troversy among the critics, some of them even going 
so far as to contend that Jesus had nothing to do with 
the institution of it, but that it arose later in the love 


188 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


of the Church for their departed Master. Every word 
in all the references in the Synoptics regarding its es- 
tablishment has been tested again and again. One 
of the most ferocious attacks has been made on the 
statement attributed to the Lord, in which he connects 
the Supper with His death. “If Jesus did not say a 
word about His death at the Supper, then an ordinance 
which has its ‘raison d’étre’ in the proclamation of His 
death, cannot, by any ingenuity, be derived from His 
words.” It would be very difficult, however, to ac- 
count for the rise 6f the Sacrament in the Church on 
any other grounds than that the Lord did call His 
disciples together on that passover night on which He 
was betrayed, and that He actually did say the words 
attributed to Him. It certainly could not be said that 
Paul was responsible for its beginning. It could not 
have occurred to Paul to say that this was to be a 
memorial of Christ’s death, any more than it might 
have occurred to any one else. Paul, however, forever 
repudiates, with all the passion for truth of his great 
heart, any suggestion that the Supper, as he had in- 
troduced it at Corinth, had been in any way originated 
by himself when he says, “TI received of the Lord that 
which also I delivered unto you” (I Cor. 11:23). 
There was a grave reason why Paul should refer to 
the origin of the Supper, in writing to the Corinthians. 
These Christians, so recently converted from all the 
horrors of paganism, “were taking liberties with it, per- 
verting it into a celebration of their own, as if Paul 
had instituted it of his own notion and they might treat 
it as they pleased; and what he says is, ‘It is not my 
ordinance, but Christ’s.? It is on His own authority 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 189 


it rests, and in His dying words its significance is 
declared. It would be more than extraordinary if, in 
conditions like these, Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 
the guise of a historical narrative, something which is 
entirely destitute of historical value. A person who in 
such circumstances could not or did not distinguish 
between matter of fact attested by evidence, and visions 
generated in the subliminal self, would not be a re- 
sponsible person. We have no hesitation, therefore, 
in holding that Paul reproduces the apostolic tradition 
at this point, and does so in the full sense of its value 
as historical authority, connecting the Supper as he 
observed it with the Lord Himself.” + There can be 
no doubt that the Supper of the Master was instituted 
substantially as it is stated in the Gospel narratives and 
by Paul in the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians. 
To any one who believes there is a self-consistent 
Christianity, this matter will present no difficulties. 
There is nothing older than the so-called Sacraments, 
for in the time of Paul they were universally accepted 
as they are revealed in the New Testament. There 
had not even been a thought of controversy concerning 
them. 

A question which should be answered here pertains 
to the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice. The fact that it 
was instituted on the night of the Passover, and that 
its environs were such as to make the disciples think 
in sacrificial terms, makes the question one of interest. 
It may, for us, be stated as follows: “Is the Lord’s 
Supper, in any way at all, connected with the sacrifices 
of the Old Testament and, therefore, entitled to be 

1 “Jesus and the Gospel,’ Denney, pp. 321, 322. 


190 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


regarded as sacrificial?’ There are three things which 
indicate that the Lord Himself intended the Supper 
to be thought of as in some manner a sacrificial act :— 
(1) the time of its institution, (2) the elements which 
He used, and (3) the words which He spake to the 
disciples. The time, as we have noted before, was that 
of the great Pascal Supper, the time when He was 
celebrating it with His disciples. Of this there cannot 
be even the shadow of a doubt. All the memories 
which were associated with this solemn feast, with 
the lamb which had been so carefully selected and 
slain, would of necessity color with sacrificial mean- 
ing the new feast which Jesus was instituting for His 
disciples. Again, the fact that our Lord used bread 
and wine as the elements in the Supper would imme- 
diately bring the sacrificial nature of the new institu- 
tion to the minds of the disciples. Unleavened bread 
and wine formed the “common material of the 
minchah; and as far as the one element is concerned,— 
the sacred unleavened bread which was inextricably 
interwoven with thoughts of the Passover, the shew- 
bread and every offering of cooked meal which was 
made in the holy places by priest or layman,—its one 
connection for the Jew was with the rites of sacri- 
fice.’ Trained as were the disciples in all that sac- 
rifice meant, the use of these elements, and especially 
when it is borne in mind that bread and wine were 
always accompaniments of the Pascal lamb, would turn 
their minds to a sacrificial view of what Jesus was 
doing as He broke the bread and gave them the cup. 
And then, also, the very words which He used would 
2“The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice,” Cave, p. 466. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 191 


have a sacrificial significance and would make them 
think of the new ordinance in sacrificial terms. The 
fact that He referred to the cup as the blood of the 
New Covenant which was shed for many for the re- 
mission of sins, and also that He tells them this is to 
be done for a memorial to Him. “The scene which, 
by way of contrast, Jesus called up by His reference 
to the New Covenant (that scene in the desert, when, 
in ratification of the first covenant, the law-giver 
sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices half upon the altar 
and half upon the assembled multitude) has already 
been referred to; the words imply that, with all the 
difference of ritualism, circumstances, and surround- 
ings, there was some fundamental resemblance between 
the newly instituted rite and that ancient ceremony per- 
formed by Moses; there can be no contrast between 
utterly diverse things, and the contrast between the 
New Covenant and the Old, pointed to some latent bond 
of union. And it is also remarkable that the uncom- 
mon word ‘memorial,’ ‘remembrance,’ ‘anamnesis,’— 
‘This do for my memorial,—was also employed in 
connection with sacrificial ceremonies of various kinds; 
the shew-bread was ‘for a memorial,’ the ‘blowing of 
trumpets’ was to constitute the burnt-offerings and 
festal-offerings a ‘memorial’ before God.’’* It is clear, 
then, that all the circumstancs of the institution of the 
Supper would connect it in some very close manner 
with the sacrifices of the Old Testament times. It is 
thus evident that we may speak of the Supper as a 
sacrifice. 

But in what sense was the Supper intended by our 

3“The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice,’ Cave, p. 467. 


192 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Lord to be considered a sacrifice? We certainly can- 
not, for a moment, subscribe to the Romanist view 
that it is a sacrificium propitiatorium. We shall have 
occasion to refer to this more carefully when later we 
consider the various theories of the Supper as they 
have been developed during the unfortunate contro- 
versies which have arisen concerning it. But without 
doubt there is a sense in which the Supper may be 
loosely considered a sacrifice. Let us remember that 
the materials employed in this Christian rite were 
bread and wine. By this selection of bread and wine, 
and not flesh and blood, our Lord identified the Supper 
with the bloodless offerings of the Old Testament dis- 
pensation, those elements which were presented in com- 
pany with the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. 
These offerings were made, not to propitiate or as sin 
offerings, but they were presented only after pro- 
pitiation had been made. in the sin offering by the 
effusion of blood. To the disciples, this would be clear, 
since they were trained in the conceptions of sacrifice. 
“Must not the conclusion have slowly but irresistibly 
dawned upon them, that this ordinance was a something 
only now become possible, since an atonement for sin 
was made once for all? The mere use of these sym- 
bols, after the long initiatory education of Mosaism, 
quite apart from the things they symbolized, would 
unerringly suggest that they were in some way con- 
nected with a finished atonement. If the Supper was 
a sacrifice, it was not a sacrifice for sin.” It is here 
the Romanist errs most grievously, that he offers anew 
the very body and blood of the Lord, to God for his 


THE LORD’S SUPPER ‘193 


sin, in the celebration of the mass; but more of this 
later. 

One other thing which should be remembered in con- 
sidering the significance of the Supper, and one, which, 
unfortunately, has not been always noted, is that it 
derives its meaning from the action of our Lord in 
instituting it. The significance has not been in the 
elements, the bread and the wine themselves, but rather 
in what Jesus did to them before the disciples. It is 
the symbolic action of the institution which has the 
eternal significance. It would be harder for our west- 
ern minds to appreciate this as did the Jews to whom 
this custom of a symbolic action was quite intelligible. 
We would, perhaps, think it extravagant, but to them 
it was one of the most powerful ways of bringing a 
great truth to the soul. For instance, Jeremiah, in 
order to bring to Israel a realization of the terrible 
sorrow and calamity which was to come upon them, 
lays a yoke upon his shoulders (Jer. 27:2; 28:10). 
Ahijah, in order to express the fact that the kingdom 
was to be rent asunder, rends his own garment and 
gives ten pieces to Jeroboam (I Kings 11: 30; Jer. 19). 
Yet another illustration is that which is found in the 
infidelity of the wife of Hosea; the tragedy of it illus- 
trates the infidelity of the people of Jehovah. Just 
before our Lord instituted the Supper, He dramatically 
teaches the lesson of humility to the disciples, as He 
takes a towel and washes their feet. And thus it is 
in the Supper. It is Christ’s last parable, but it is a 
parable acted rather than spoken. The spoken word 
had failed; it is now time to enforce the great truth 
by an action so lofty and sacred that it would forever 


194 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


fix the words He had uttered so often. “This’’ means 
not the object, but the act. Remove the comma after 
“body,’ and you have, “This is my body broken.” 
And this is what the Lord meant. As He took the 
bread and broke it, it is as if He said, “This action of 
mine is my body which is soon to be bruised and 
broken upon the cross.” * And so, also, in the cup. 
It is not the cup itself, nor the contents of it, but the 
action. It is as though Jesus said, “This is my blood 
shed for you and through which you have life; its 
outpouring is my blood outpoured upon the cross. I 
pour it out for you, and you drink it into yourselves; 
this outpouring and your partaking is God’s new cov- 
enant with you.” How otherwise, unless this is the 
significance of it, could the Supper, in any way, be 
called a covenant or mutual act? If this could have 
been understood in the Church in the past, how much 
trouble might have been saved. I have attended com- 
munion services many times in which the fundamental 
significance of the Supper was overlooked. It is a 
symbolism of action and not of the contents at all, a 
parable enacted rather than spoken. 

There is an interesting study in the words of the 
verse with which we prefaced this chapter. In these 
words, is the real significance of the Lord’s Supper 
contained. The action of the Lord is expressed in 
strong terms set off by commas. 

(1) “Jesus took bread.” 

Let us constantly remember that the bread is His 
body. What a wonderful advent was that of God into 
our world when He took a human body to be His 

4“The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice,” Cave, p. 467, 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 195 


tabernacle. There was no other way for Him to speak 
to us in an intelligible manner. Only as He could par- 
take of all that the flesh means in suffering could He 
bring to us the message we need. It is not difficult, 
then, to see in this action of Jesus as He takes the 
bread, that mightier act in His taking upon Himself 
our flesh. The incarnation, the atonement, baptism, 
and the Lord’s Supper are so indissolubly linked to- 
gether that we never can think of one without the 
others. Paul glories in the fact that our God took 
flesh, when he writes ecstatically to Timothy: “And 
without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; 
he who was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, 
seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed 
on in the world, received up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16). 

(2) “Jesus took bread, and blessed it.” 

His flesh and blood mean humanity. He took upon 
Himself our humanity, but our humanity without sin, 
for He blessed it. He sanctified and redeemed it. It 
is the redeemed and blessed humanity which we are 
to be as He dwells in our hearts, the righteousness of 
God in us. Living without sin, though in a sinful 
world, and tempted in all points as we are tempted, 
He glorifies our flesh. He gives unto us the conception 
that this flesh is, indeed, the temple of the Holy Spirit. 
As, therefore, we see Him in the Supper, blessing the 
bread, we can see the even more glorious blessing of 
our flesh as He comes into it and lives in it the life of 
pure godlikeness. 

(3) “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake 
ates” 

It is a broken loaf of which we eat, and a poured out 


196 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


cup of which we drink. We cannot eat the loaf whole. 
The body which He took upon Himself was broken. 
Without such a breaking, there is no redemption. It 
was an inevitable spiritual necessity that Christ should 
die. Yea, it was a necessity in God Himself. “The 
tragic is nature’s law which cannot be evaded by an 
immanent God.’”’ We cannot give gifts of blessing 
to humanity without giving ourselves. This has, many 
times, been tried, but never has it been done. We 
cannot give any gift of blessing without giving our- 
selves and all that we are. “Just as truly as food must 
be destroyed before it can be of use to us, so He had 
to be destroyed before he could savingly serve us. 
We must be broken ere we deeply bless. Self-will, 
self-seeking, self-love, must be broken (by whatever 
judgments) in a diviner love, else every other con- 
tribution we offer, even for the purpose of Christ, 
is rejected by God. We try to escape this, to com- 
pound, to evade, to give things while withholding self. 
But all the courses of Heaven move against such a 
man. As Christ broke His bread, so He gave His 
body to be broken. As His body was broken, so was 
His heart. As His heart was broken, so was His 
self-will. Without this breaking, there is no redemp- 
tion, no share in redemption.” ° So when we come 
together on the Lord’s Day, that we may assemble 
around His table in our act of breaking the bread, let 
us keep before us just what it means,—His body 
broken for us. 

(4) “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake 
it, and gave it to his disciples.” 

5 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 321. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 197 


Here was an act in which all that the death of the 
Master meant was, in prelusive manner, assigned to 
His disciples. It was as though He had said, “I am 
going to die for you, that through my death you 
may have life, and now I am conveying to you this 
death in advance.’”’ Jesus was born to die. It was in 
His blood. If He had not died, He would have lived 
a false and untrue life. The cross is not a mere in- 
fluence, a mere showing of God’s love. It is a real 
thing. It does something. And that which it does 
Jesus would give to His disciples. He gave himself. 
Never did He spare Himself. His death was the re- 
sult of a life of absolute obedience to God. To live 
in order that He might be sacrificed would be immoral, 
but to die as a part of His great mission was sublime. 
The whole life of the Master was one long self-giving. 
How dramatic and meaningful is this action when, as 
it were, He makes over to them in advance all that 
His death was to mean to them in blessing. 

(5) Jesus not only gave the bread to His disciples, 
but they were to eat it. All the power to live the life 
of godliness comes from the one who is the vine. 
That life which flows into the branches cannot flow 
save as it comes from the source of the new life, and 
Jesus is that source. He is the head of the new hu- 
manity, as Adam was the head of the old sinful hu- 
manity. And this new institution, so simply estab- 
lished and yet so wonderful, was to be a perpetual 
reminder to the disciples that only as they ate of the 
Lord, as they were rooted and grounded in Him, could 
they have life in themselves. “He is broken in vain 
if He be not, as crucified, eaten and co-mingled fully 


198 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


with our life and soul. He is not, for us, effectual 
till He is in us; he does not fully bless us until He 
occupy us.” ° Thus, always can we realize the deep 
solemnity of this act which we celebrate each Lord’s 
Day; it is a real act, as baptism is a real act, an act 
created by the indwelling presence of Christ, and as 
mystic and wonderful as He was. 


II. A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE GREAT THEORIES OF THE 
SUPPER OF THE LORD 


1. The Roman Catholic Doctrine. 

The Romanist doctrine of the Lord’s Supper may 
‘be summed up in four propositions. We have but 
little space here to devote to its consideration. Our 
only purpose in dealing with these theories is that we 
may throw into stronger light the New Testament 
meaning of the Supper in its relation to the remission 
of sins. 

(a) First, then, the Lord’s Supper in the New 
Testament is everywhere taught as a representation of 
the Lord’s death. This is universally acknowledged. 
Where it is not so expressly stated in the writings of 
the Apostles or Evangelists, it is clearly implied. By 
a process of transubstantiation consequent upon the 
priestly consecration, the Supper is actually, each time 
it is observed, a re-presentation of the actual body and 
blood of the Lord. 

(b) In the second place, the Supper is a sacrament, 
but one not in the ordinary sense of the term alone. 
It is not merely a channel through which the Master 


6 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 325. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 199 


blesses us, but it has a potency of its own, sinve it 
is the actual body and blood of Jesus. Whatever 
power the body and blood of the Lord has, the Supper 
has, since by this process of transubstantiation it has 
by priestly consecration been changed into the actual 
body and blood of the Saviour. 

(c) Thus, in the third place, the Supper is a true, 
a propitiatory, sacrifice. It is as much an offering for 
sin, every time it is celebrated, as were the offerings 
of like nature in the Old Testament, in fact, it is as 
an offering for sin which all these dimly foreshadowed. 
This, in a word, is the Roman Catholic doctrine of 
the mass. 

To any one acquainted with the teachings of the 
New Testament regarding the meaning of the Lord’s 
Supper, the weakness and utter absurdity of such a 
position is readily apparent. The criticisms of this 
position have been so concisely and clearly summed up 
by Dr. Cave that I follow him closely here. 

(1) First, with all its claims to perspicuity, the 
Tridentine Doctrine of the Supper is utterly at sea, 
for the elements employed cannot be at the same time 
the body and blood of Jesus and the symbols of that 
body and blood. The doctrine defines the death of 
Christ as in reality a sacred fact, with its adjuncts, the 
broken body and the shed blood, but at the same time 
it says that under the form of the bread and wine 
there exists the very body and blood of the Lord, 
together with His soul and divinity. This is simply to 
say words without meaning, for it is evident that the 
bread cannot be the symbol of the body of Christ, 
and at the same time the flesh of the Lord in reality, 


200 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


nor can the wine be a symbol of the blood of Christ 
and at the same time the very blood. 

(2) A second objection to the Romish ‘hearing may 
be stated in a sentence. If the doctrine of the Real 
Presence of Christ in the Supper “is founded upon a 
literal interpretation of the words, “This is my body,’ 
consistency demands that there should be a strictly 
literal interpretation of the words which accompanied 
the distribution of the wine. The previous objection 
was based upon a misuse of language, this on a hesi- 
tant method of Biblical interpretation.” 

(3) A third objection to the Roman Catholic doc- 
trine of the Lord’s Supper is that to call it a pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice is directly contrary to all the Old 
Testament teaches about sacrifice, and also to the many 
express statements of the New. We have already noted 
the fact that there is a sense in. which the Supper 
may be thought of as a sacrifice,—a very loose sense. 
That is, it has some parallelism with the Mosaic rites 
of presentation. The very absence of blood from the 
ritual, and the absolute silence of the whole New 
Testament on anything which would even suggest it, 
warrants us in contending that in no sense at all was it 
ever intended to be considered a sacrificium propitia- 
torium. 

(4) There is, further, no warrant for the position 
that the Eucharist is the antitype of all the sacrifices 
in the Old Testament. The sacrifices in the Old Tes- 
tament were but shadows of things which were to 
come, they were transitory, but for a little while, and 
were to pass away. The death of Christ is the com- 
pletion of them, and in His death he nails the old Law 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 201 


to the cross; it is done away. But to find in the 
Lord’s Supper the fulfillment of all that was predicted 
is to narrow the whole thing down to a point at which 
no student of the essential significance of the Mosaic 
institutions can accept it. 

(5) A last and powerful objection to the Real 
Presence theory is directed at the necessity for the 
priestly consecration in order to the transubstantiation. 
This is to multiply miracles where there are already 
too many to be accepted. A sacrament is “a symbol 
which works the effect of the thing symbolized by the 
gracious intervention of the Father of Mercies; why, 
then, is it found necessary in this case of the Eucharist 
to define a sacrament as a symbol and more than a 
symbol, which works its effect by its individual po- 
tency?’ If a Romanist finds the whole meaning of 
the Supper in a spiritual application, why is it neces- 
sary to confuse and enlarge the meaning of a sacra- 
ment here? Why is it necessary for the priest to do 
that which, if it is a sacrament at all, the Father Him- 
self can do? If it is a sacrament, the Father can and 
will work through it and nothing that the priest can 
do will make any difference. 

2. The second theory of the Supper, which we can 
note in passing, is the Lutheran. In reality, as far as 
the faith in the real presence of the body and blood 
of Christ in the Supper is concerned, there is no differ- 
ence between the Romish Church and the Lutheran. 
With the Church of Rome, and the Greek Church as 
well, the Lutherans have believed that Christ is in the 
elements of the Supper in a real and tangible sense. 
They differ, however, in that while the Roman and 


202 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Greek churches teach that there is an actual change 
of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ 
immediately consequent upon the priestly consecration, 
the Lutheran Church teaches that under the bread and 
wine is the presence of the body and blood of the Lord. 
This, in short, is the theory of con-substantiation. A 
summary of the doctrine as universally held by Lu- 
therans may be made in a sentence. First of all, the 
Lord’s Supper is truly a symbolic representation of the 
death of Jesus; secondly, it is an actual representation 
of what the cross means to us; and thirdly, it has some 
peculiar sacramental power, not only as an instrument 
through which the Father works our advantage, but 
because it is in some manner impossible of explanation, 
the actual body and blood of Christ. In the word of 
Dr. Cave, ‘‘The same criticisms which invalidate the 
Romish theory affect this. Thus, in the first place, 
the theory is based upon an inconsistent literalism; 
secondly, it admits confusion into the idea of a symbol; 
thirdly, it adduces an unnecessary adjunct to produce 
an effect purely sacramental.”’ In its main premise the 
theory, therefore, is out of harmony with all the plain 
New Testament teaching upon the subject. 

3. It will be well, in passing, that we may throw 
clearer light upon the glory of the New Testament 
position, to note the theory of Zwingli. To this godly 
man there was no real presence of Christ in the Sup- 
per, nor does the Christian in partaking of it partake 
of Christ in any sense at all. To him, the Supper was 
purely commemorative or symbolic. How lucidly he 
expresses his belief, “The Supper of the Lord is no 
other than a feast of the soul; and Christ instituted 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 203 


it as a remembrance of Himself. When a man trusts 
himself to the passion and redemption of Christ, he 
is saved; a sure visible sign of this He has left in 
the emblems of His body and blood, and bids them 
both eat and drink in remembrance of Himself.” The 
Supper is thus an act in which those who know them- 
selves to be saved by the blood of Jesus announce the 
fact to the world. In the words of Paul, they “do 
show forth the Lord’s death until he comes.” The 
unity of the Church was also shown forth in this act, 
and to this Zwingli was committed. In a word, he 
believed that the Supper was a commemoration or a 
symbol testifying to the world concerning the fact of 
our salvation in Christ, but that it had any so-called 
sacramental power he denied. 

4. The Socinian theory was so closely allied to the 
Zwinglian that a sentence will express it. Like the 
Zwinglian, it denied any sacramental potency in the 
Eucharist, although it did contend for the symbolic 
or commemorative nature of it. To come together 
for worship and to take of the Supper is good for 
the soul because it sets our minds on the sacrifice 
which Christ made for us. It is good to exhort one 
another to pure life, and nothing so contributes to this 
as the act of publicly thanking Christ by partaking of 
this memorial feast. There is no other power in the 
Supper save this, that it psychologically affects us,— 
those of us who meet together and partake together. 

5. The theory of John Calvin and the Refornied 
Churches is the one adopted in “The Scriptural Doc- 
trine of Sacrifice,” by Cave. In a word, it is that the 
Lord’s Supper is a memorial, a mighty symbol of what 


204 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


Christ did; but, at the same time, it is sacramental in 
that through it there is actually a sacramental appli- 
cation to the soul of the merits of the death of the 
Saviour. The Supper really affects something; it is 
not symbolic alone. 

A study of these various theories, brief though it 
has been, will enable us to see in clearer light the true 
meaning of the rite as it is taught in the New Testa- 
ment, and prepares us for a more careful probing of 
the doctrine. 


Ill. A CONSTRUCTIVE STATEMENT OF THE NEW TES- 
TAMENT TEACHING UPON THE LORD’S SUPPER 
IN RELATION TO THE REMISSION OF SINS 


There is but one question with which we are now 
concerned. Is the Supper, in any way, connected with 
the remission of sins? If it is so related, in what way 
is that connection manifest? It is only to ask in other 
words, Is the Eucharist sacramental? Let us remem- 
ber that the men to whom it was presented, with whom 
it was instituted, were Jews, those to whom the sacri- 
ficial significance of the Old Testament sacrificial rites 
were familiar. Interwoven with every shred of their 
mental and spiritual make-up, deeply imbedded in their 
reverence, were these very rites and their sacramental 
meaning. On the very face of it, then, it would seem 
that this action of our Lord was a direct appeal to that 
attitude of heart and mind. The question is whether 
this acknowledged Passover of the New Testament 
would not carry the minds over to a sacramental po- 
tency. Was it not actually selected by the Master Him- 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 205 


self in order that the thoughts of His Apostles might 
be so directed? If these Apostles regarded the ancient 
rites as having to do with the remission of sins, would 
they not thus regard this new institution which was so 
closely connected with the procuring cause of such re- 
mission, that to take this meaning out of it would be 
to reduce it to nothingness? It is impossible to see 
how they would escape realizing that this act, while it 
was a memorial, was something more; that, as they 
observed it week by week, it actually brought them in 
some way to the flowing fountain of blood in which 
they could wash and be clean. But let us examine it 
more in detail. 

1. The time of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper 
is significant. It is evident from clear statements of 
the New Testament and also from the teaching of 
church history that the disciples of the Lord met each 
Lord’s day for the purpose of observing the Eucharist. 
Luke tells us in the second chapter of Acts that the 
three thousand who were converted on the day of 
Pentecost “continued steadfastly in the Apostle’s teach- 
ing and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and 
prayers” (Acts 2:42). While there might be a pos- 
sibility that this does not refer directly to the Lord’s 
Supper, the preponderance of the probability is on the 
other side. If it does not refer to the observance of 
the memorial feast, it is hard to explain just what it is 
to which it does refer. In line with the same thought, 
is the statement in the twentieth chapter of the same 
book, “And upon the first day of the week, when we 
were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed 
with them” (Acts 20:7). There is but one first day 


206 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


of the week, and it comes every week. It is evident 
from the very construction of this verse that the 
meeting on the first day to celebrate the Supper was 
a customary action. It is not that they came together 
occasionally to remember their Lord in this appointed 
manner, but the reason for their meeting was that they 
might do this. To observe it at some time which the 
church may designate makes the whole action a mat- 
ter of convenience rather than of conviction. Pliny 
the Younger, Proconsul of Pontus under Trajan, in 
writing to the Emperor, seeking information concern- 
ing his future treatment of the Christians, says, “They 
met again in the evening (the Lord’s Day) at a simple 
and innocent meal.”” “The Teaching of the Twelve 
Apostles,’ that primitive church manual which so 
stirred the world of Christian scholarship a half cen- 
tury ago, has this significant statement concerning the 
Supper, “Coming together on the Lord’s Day break 
bread and give thanks, confessing your transgressions, 
that your sacrifice may be pure.” For more than seven 
hundred years, the Lord’s Supper was observed by the 
Church each Lord’s Day. Concerning the change of 
its time of observance, John Calvin says, “The change 
is a contrivance of the devil.” John Wesley urges, 
“Spread the table every week.” From an overwhelm- 
ing mass of testimony, it is indisputable that the early 
Church observed the Supper every week, and that the 
reason for their assembly was not that they might hear 
a sermon but that they might observe the Supper. It 
is a question whether or not they would have observed 
this feast so faithfully and so frequently if it had been 
a memorial feast only. There is a hint here that the 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 207 


disciples felt the Supper to be in some manner actually 
and really connected with the remission of sins. Un- 
less it were in some sense sacramental, it is doubtful 
if it would have remained in the Church until the pres- 
ent hour. Mere forms, even though they are of me- 
morial character, do not as a rule have such a life as 
this. 

2. We are now prepared to summarize in a few 
statements the evident significance of the Lord’s Sup- 
per in its connection with our constant forgiveness. 

(a) It is apparent that the Lord’s Supper is a 
communion. 

So the Apostle Paul declares it to be: “The cup of 
blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the 
blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not 
a communion of the body of Christ?” (I Cor. 10: 16.) 
Truly it is a communion with Christ. It is close spir- 
itual intercourse with Him, a fellowship with His suf- 
ferings. As we partake of the bread broken, we be- 
come partakers of His broken body, of all the suffer- 
ing which brings us life. As we partake of the cup, 
we have communion with the blood which for us was 
poured out. But it is not only a communion with 
suffering and death; it is more than that; it is a com- 
munion with life, His life. “As baptism is the sac- 
rament of our uniting, so the Lord’s Supper is that 
of our continuous and constantly renewed union and 
communion with God through Christ. They are both 
sacraments of life, i.e, of our union with the life 
who is Christ. They enable us to say that we are in 
Christ, and that Christ is in us.”" And how pro- 


7“The Soteriology of the New Testament,” Dubois, p. 180. 


208 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


pitious is the environment of the Supper, when ob- 
served in the New Testament manner, for just this 
communion,—this close spiritual fellowship with the 
Saviour, which is so vital to the continuance of our 
life in Him. Everything seems to conspire to the end 
that we shall be drawn close to Him. In the first place, 
it is observed on the Lord’s Day, that day which is for- 
ever memorable because it witnesses to His victory 
over the grave, and His resurrection unto glory. It is 
decidedly His day, sacred and holy and glorious, On 
this day, His people, the best in the world, that new 
humanity of which He is the head, have gathered in 
His house, a house dedicated through sacrifice and 
faith and tears to His service, and around His table 
spread with the emblems of His broken body and shed 
blood. Here are all the personal possessions of the 
Master brought together. If, in an atmosphere created 
by such conditions, a redeemed soul cannot commune 
with Jesus, it is impossible to imagine conditions where 
this result could be obtained. And such communion 
is just that which will evoke the repentance from sin, 
which is necessary before the Christian can be cleansed 
from it. As Christ died for sin, so in our communion 
with Him we die to sin and are purged by His blood. 
Hence, even in the act of communion, there is a purg- 
ing and cleansing of the soul. There is in it all a true 
connection with the remission of our sins. 

(b) The Supper is also a time of examination. It 
calls for meditation and introspection. How clearly il- 
lustrative of this fact is the statement of Paul, “But 
let a man prove (or examine) himself, and so let 
him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (I Cor. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 209 


11:28). True heart searching which leads to re- 
pentance is the spiritual condition necessary to a proper 
observance of the Supper. In the light of the cross 
to which the emblems of the broken body and shed 
blood turn the mind of the believer is he to turn the 
white light of meditation upon his own heart, and in 
the glare of its unsparing beams resolve anew to live 
the life with Him. How necessary to repentance that 
we see our sin as sin. This is the crying need of the 
hour, when we are so entangled with the cares of the 
world, with social pleasures, with business. We need 
time for meditation, for heart examination. It has 
been my own experience that there is no time when 
IT can do this so well as that when the loved ones 
in Christ, in His house, and on His day, surround 
His table. This very time of examination evokes re- 
pentance and prayer, and repentance and prayer bring 
to forgiveness the sinning Christian. Hence, its rela- 
tion to the remission of sins is once more evident, in 
that it each week brings us back to the procuring cause 
of our salvation. 

(c) The Lord’s Supper is also a great confessional 
act,—a constant proclamation of the glorious fact of 
the atonement of Christ for our sins, and a declaration 
of the Christian’s faith. Paul affirms this in the words, 
“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, 
ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come” (I Cor. 
11:26). Ye do show forth, or proclaim, or better, 
publish, the death of Christ. Here the whole act is 
conceived as confessional in nature. And so it is a 
confession of our faith in the very heart of the Gos- 
pel, those facts without which there never has been 


210 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


a Gospel. It is significant that the pseudo-Christians, 
those who claim to be Christians and yet deny to 
Christ the place universally accorded to Him in the 
New Testament, never practice baptism nor the Lord’s 
Supper. To this we have alluded in our consideration 
of the relation between baptism and the remission of 
sins. And why do they take this attitude? The reason 
is obvious. They do not celebrate the Lord’s Supper 
because they do not believe in that which the Lord’s 
Supper memorializes, in that which the act of partak- 
ing of the bread and the drinking of the cup cele- 
brates. They do not believe that Christ died for our 
sins according to the Scriptures. How then can they 
partake of the broken bread which publishes this fact? 
They do not believe that, in any sense, His blood was 
shed for the remission of sins. How then can they 
partake of the emblem which shows this forth? Dr. 
Stevens has stated it exactly, when he says of Paul 
and his attitude toward the institution that “the Sup- 
per was to him a perpetual sign and confession of the 
benefits conferred by the Lord’s redemptive work.” ® 
Every time we assemble with those like-minded with 
us, in the sacred place where we are to meet Him, we 
are confessing to the world and to the Church our 
undying faith in these redemptive acts of our Master, 
which brought to us our glorious salvation. To the 
eye, we preach the Gospel in an act, the Gospel of Him 
who died for our sins and was raised for our justifi- 
cation. 

And it will not be digressing here to emphasize the 
fact that we have an engagement with our Lord at 

8“The Pauline Theology,” Stevens, p. 336. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 211 


His house on His day. If I were invited to dine with 
the King of England or with the President of the 
United States, I would consider the invitation one of 
great honor, and I would allow nothing to interfere 
with my keeping that engagement. Should I not be 
as eager and as careful that I do not miss the special 
meeting with my Lord at His table? How much of 
spiritual power is lost because of the indifference and 
carelessness of Christians in the observance of the 
feast. 

(d) The Eucharist is a bond of union. So Paul 
considered it, and so he speaks of it: “The cup of 
blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the 
blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it 
not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that 
we, who are many, are one bread, one body; for we 
are all partakers of the one bread” (I Cor. 10: 16, 17). 
The one loaf, or bread, represents the spiritual unity 
of believers in Christ. The one body is referred to 
by Paul, again and again. Without doubt, the one 
bond which, more than anything else, held the early 
Christians together during the awful days when the 
persecutions of fiendish Roman Emperors sent thou- 
sands of them to death was the observance of the 
Supper. Without ministers, they met together in the 
catacombs or in secluded places, and broke the bread, 
and partook of the cup, and were one. They held 
together in their common relationship to God through 
Jesus Christ the Lord. “The common symbol of which 
all partake suggests the common participation of all, 
in those gracious benefits which are symbolized, and 


212 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


thus designates the unity of the participants.” *° I can- 
not but believe that one of the prime necessities for a 
reunited church is the restoration to its New Testa- 
ment place and meaning, and to the New Testament 
time of its observance, of the Lord’s Supper. It is true 
that Jesus did not specify the time of the Supper, say- 
ing only, “As often as ye do this, do it in memory of 
me.” But did He not, by omitting to set a time, leave 
this to the love of His disciples? And out of their 
love for Him they came together on His triumph day, 
the day of His resurrection. Since they were closer 
to Him than we are, and since no day more expressive 
of its meaning could be chosen, we contend for its ob- 
servance on this day. As the day commemorates the 
resurrection, so the Supper commemorates the death 
for our sins. Thus, every Lord’s Day the three great 
facts of the Gospel,—the death, the burial, and the 
resurrection of our Lord,—are commemorated. 


(e) The Lord’s Supper is a glorious time of cleans- 
ing for the Christian. For this very position we have 
been contending throughout the whole discussion. Re- 
member that as Christians we sin daily. Because we 
have become Christians does not mean that we will 
never sin again. Sadly must we acknowledge that too 
often we fall into temptation. We sin grievously. 
John teaches us that “if we walk in the light, as he 
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, 
and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all 
sin’ (I John 1:7). Two wonderful results follow 
from walking in the light; we have fellowship with 
each other, we are bound together, we are one people; 

9“The Pauline Theology,” Stevens, p. 336. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 213 


and as we thus walk, we are cleansed constantly by the 
blood of Jesus, the Son of God. This means that the 
sinning Christian is cleansed, as well as the alien sin- 
ner, in his act of coming to Christ. The Lord’s Supper 
is sacramental because of the fact that it is indissolubly 
connected with the death of Christ; it derives all its 
meaning from this connection. What is made over 
to us, or conveyed to us, “or appropriated to us in the 
death of Christ is his power, especially in the forgive- 
ness of sins.” And so it is that “he who receives the 
death of Christ in its efficacy, the forgiveness of sins, 
enters into mysterious connection with the body of 
Christ itself, since the forgiveness of sins is the power 
inhering in the body of Christ.” *° This very thing ° 
we have been contending for in the whole discussion, 
namely, that the Lord’s Supper is not merely memorial, 
but sacramental as well. There can be no doubt but 
that the early Christians so conceived it, as the many 
strong hints imply. Anything which is so vitally re- 
lated to the very center and heart of the Gospel, to 
those facts without which there is no Gospel at all, 
is related to that for which Jesus came, and lived, and 
suffered, and died. Surely this is what He meant when 
He said that the cup “‘is the blood of the new covenant 
which is poured out for many untc the remission of 
sins.” The whole act is one which we repeat, and 
by repeating bring before us that which lifts us to 
Him who is our Lord. “Baptism is not repeated; the 
Lord’s Supper is. The difference lies in their nature. 
Baptism is the sacrament of the new birth, and birth 
begins life once for all. But the Lord’s Supper is the 


10 “The Christian Salvation,’ Candlish, p. 199. 


214 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


sacrament of the new life continued, and this is by the 
repeated gift of grace. The life, both of the indi- 
vidual and the community, must be sustained by con- 
stant recurrence to its source. In baptism, the Church 
gathers all together in one basal act, corresponding 
to the forgiveness and reconciliation of the world once 
for all in the cross as the final creation of the New 
Humanity; but there is also the daily and particular 
forgiveness, and corresponding to that, the Church in 
the other sacrament acts in an exercise frequent and 
particular.” ** 

Most Protestants would revolt at the doctrine of the 
real presence or that elements actually become body 
and blood of the Lord, and yet, it seems to me, we 
have really lost something here. There is a sense in 
which Jesus does dwell in the bread and the wine, 
for the Church is His body, and through His Holy 
Spirit He dwells in that body. Not that He lives or 
dwells in the accidents of the Supper, in the elements 
as such, but in the action there is the real presence of 
the Lord to bless us. If there is not this presence for 
our blessing, then the whole argument which we have 
been trying to make,—that the Lord’s Supper is sac- 
ramental,—that it does have to do with the remission 
of sins of the sinning Christian,—has failed of its pur- 
pose. Dr. DuBose has so well stated this attitude to- 
ward the Supper that I quote him at some length here. 
“In speaking of what I have called the literal and real 
truth of the language of the sacrament, I have, perhaps, 
failed to make a distinction which ought to be made 
between the terms ‘literal’ and ‘real.’ ‘This is my 


11 “The Church and the Sacraments,” Forsythe, p. 259. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 215 


body’ may express a very real without expressing a 
literal fact. The doctrine of transubstantiation seems 
to me to assume that the real truth of our Lord’s 
words is inseparable from their literal truth. The doc- 
trine of the real presence assumes a reality which is 
separable from mere literalism and which is not less 
real and far higher for being so separated. Every 
‘verbum Dei’ must be what it means, but it must be 
so in the sphere or order of being in which it is meant 
or intended. We speak of knowing Christ, but Paul 
says that we do not longer know Him,—xard odpxog 
but only xavé aveduaros. Our Lord Himself spoke 
of our continuing to see Him, hear Him, etc.; and we 
do not doubt that we do so in a very real, although 
not in a literal, sense. ‘We do not see or hear or know 
Him with natural or literal eyes or ears or understand- 
ing. Not only is the Christ Himself now xard 
mvevuatos, but His whole relation to us is only as 
we ate xata mveduatos. That is, He is related to us 
and we to Him, we know Him, we receive Him, 
through the organs and functions of our spiritual and 
not of our natural lives. As we do not, literally and 
yet really, see and hear Him, so we do not, literally 
and yet really, eat and drink Him. We receive, assim- 
ilate, and convert Him into our very selves, none the 
less, but far the more, because we do not do so through 
natural mouths and stomachs. We receive Him as 
really through the organs and functions of our spir- 
itual lives as we receive natural food through the or- 
gans of our natural life. And, moreover, we receive 
Him in the sacrament, in which the bread and wine 
are to us His flesh and blood. The very purpose and 


216 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


use of the sacrament is to represent and to be to us 
the objective element and part in our spiritual life,— 
that which we receive as the condition of what, through 
it, we are to be and do. It is to save us from the 
heresy and vanity of a purely subjective spiritual life, 
a life by our own act or state of mind, instead of 
which it makes our life an act of Christ, entering into 
and incarnating Himself in our acts and states of 
mind. But how shall Christ thus objectively come 
to us except in some objective act? How can He speak 
to us with some language and appear to save in some 
symbol of His presence?” ** Dr. Stevens is right when 
he says “that the bread and wine were thought of in 
the language of institution as symbols of Christ’s body 
and blood, is evident from the fact that He was bodily 
present with those to whom He spoke the words, and 
any other sense of the words would have been abso- 
lutely unintelligible.’ ** While this is true, however, 
it does not at all preclude our receiving Christ in a 
real sense, as present in this sacrament, as He is in 
His body, the Church, for assuredly this act is an act 
of His body. It is against the theory that the Supper 
is only monumental or memorial that we are contend- 
ing. In reality, it will all depend upon what one thinks 
of the atonement of the Lord as to his position on the 
sacramental nature of the Supper. If he believes the 
cross to be only a glorious example of religious im- 
pressionism, it will be easy for him to think of the 
Supper as purely symbolic and memorial. If he sees 
in the cross something actually done or accomplished 


12 “The Soteriology of the New Testament,” DuBose, pp. 387, 388. 
13 “The Pauline Theology,” Stevens, p. 335. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 217 


for us by the Lord, then will he find in the Supper a 
sacrament or means through which the divine power 
works our forgiveness and spiritual advantage. 

(f) The Lord’s Supper is a wonderful pledge of 
immortality and of the second coming of the Lord. 

The Supper is memorial. This we will consider in 
detail later. But it is not only memorial, it is antict- 
patory, it looks forward to the coming of the Lord 
in triumph to bless His waiting Church. This is the 
meaning of the words of Paul, “For as often as ye 
eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s 
death till he come” (I Cor. 11:26). How long are 
we todothis? Till He come. Surely it is clear, from 
hundreds of Scriptures, that He is coming. When 
we do not know, and how foolish and misleading is 
it to set the time of His return. But that He is com- 
ing again none will deny, if they believe Him and 
His word. And this feast is to be observed until 
He comes again. Here is a pledge, a tangible token, 
that He whom death could not hold will come again 
to us, bringing the gift of eternal life. Here are the 
memorials of His broken body and His shed blood. 
But these should not make us think only of a dead 
Christ. We worship not a defeated Lord, one who 
succumbed to the death of the cross and whose ashes 
lie in an unknown grave under the Syrian stars. He 
is the living and exalted Lord, and we do not under- 
stand the meaning of this token which He has left 
unless we think of it as bringing a new life from Him 
who was dead but is alive forevermore. Every time 
we take of the bread and drink of the cup we have 
a pledge that He is coming again and that He will 


218 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


take us with Him in life eternal, in that city where they 
need no sun. 

(g) The Lord’s Supper is a memorial. This we 
have been noting all through our discussion; but let 
us now consider it from this standpoint alone. Jesus 
knew there would be grave danger that, entangled with 
the cares of the world, with the toils of business life, 
with the temptations of a wicked generation, His dis- 
ciples would forget Him. He wanted to be remem- 
bered, yea, upon this being remembered depended the 
success of His whole mission in the world. li His 
disciples did not remember Him, all would be lost. 
Therefore, He leaves them this memorial of Himself, 
this action by which they could constantly keep in mind 
what He had done. Let us remember that the bread 
and wine are not memorials of Christ’s body and blood 
as such, but rather of the body broken and the blood 
shed. It is to “show forth the Lord’s death,” that is, 
it is a memorial of His death. Take the death of 
Christ out of it, and you have nothing left. It is a 
memorial of what Christ accomplished on the cross, 
and its observance, week by week, brings to the mind 
of the believer all that Calvary meant. 

How powerful in inspiration to deeds of courage 
and love is a memorial. I stood one day upon the 
greatest battlefield on the American continent. From 
the top of a high steel tower I looked out over the 
hills which stretched away before me. Four hundred 
white monuments gleamed in the Pennsylvania sun- 
shine. In the form of a gigantic question mark they 
lay, with Little Round Top on the lower end, and at 
the upper Culp’s Hill. A mile away, facing the ques- 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 219 


tion mark line, was Seminary Ridge. In imagination, 
the whole field seemed to live again, and I could see 
the long lines of gray as they came marching from 
the shelter of the woods yonder on the ridge, down 
into the valley of death. Was there ever a spectacle 
more sublime than that, as the army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, with bands playing as though on dress parade, 
marched into the jaws of death. Onward they came 
until they met the long lines of blue waiting, with 
nerves taut, for their coming. Hundreds of guns 
were turned upon them, from Round Top to Culp’s 
Hill, tearing great gaps in their ranks; but still on 
they came until they met the stone wall and attained 
the clump of oak trees which stands to this day. On- 
ward and onward, until only a few remained to drift 
back broken-hearted to the ridge. On Cemetery Hill, 
to-day, these men of the blue and the gray, our fathers, 
who so gloriously baptized the fields and hills of Gettys- 
burg with their heroic blood, lie sleeping. Loving 
hands have builded on this sacred ground monuments 
of granite, bronze and marble. But in our hearts they 
live forever, in memorials ever green because of what 
they did there to dedicate that ground, that the “gov- 
ernment of the people, for the people, and by the people, 
should not perish from the earth.” 

Again I stood upon a great battlefield in the sunny 
land of France. Before me, stretched away, neatly, 
row on row, twenty-five thousand white crosses, and 
on each cross there, so whitely gleaming in the warm 
sunshine, I read the names of our own American 
boys. These sons of the men who sleep on Gettys- 
burg field were of heroic breed. And as their fathers 


220 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


fought and died, so they have dedicated forever this 
land to a new and a more glorious freedom. All over 
a mighty nation will be builded monuments to the men 
of the Argonne and all those other fields made forever 
glorious in history because of the deeds of noble men. 
Yes, we are familiar with the meaning of memorials. 

Upon a little hill in the far westland, where the 
firs are whispering in the evening breezes which sob 
and sigh from off Old Pacific’s bosom, are two graves. 
The place is a sacred shrine to me. To it I go that 
I may renew my vows, strengthen my resolution, and 
refresh my memories of those who sleep beneath the 
springing grass. One is the resting place of a brother, 
a brave soldier boy, the first man from his state to give 
his life for his country in the World War. Bright and 
happy was he when, at eighteen, he heard the call, 
and answered, with eyes clear and heart strong, for 
the battle of right. The other one died too, as a soldier, 
a grand veteran of the cross. For a quarter of a cen- 
tury, he stood before his classes in the noble building 
which, even now, rears its stately form in the valley 
below. In that quarter of a century, he poured his 
very life into the hundreds of young men and women 
who, to this hour, are telling the story of the love 
of Christ, to the ends of the earth. In this sacred 
spot, I hear again the words he taught, I see again his 
smile of love, I am stirred again by his mighty message 
of power. And in such hallowed associations, is it 
not easy for a son to catch a new vision of the glory 
of the life in Christ. Truly, to me this memorial, this 
remembering of him, brings strength and purging of 
soul with high resolve. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 221 


And, so it is, when we come together to remember 
Jesus in His Supper, in this token which He left us. 
To the man uninitiated, it may seem strange that we 
should break a little piece of bread and drink from a 
cup, but to the man who has experienced all that rec- 
onciliation means,—who has known Christ,—this is 
a reminder of Him, it brings anew to his soul all that 
Calvary means. Such a stirring up of our minds by 
way of remembrance serves to purify the heart by His 
love. It was the preaching of the cross which first 
evoked faith in our hearts, the preaching of the death 
and suffering of our Saviour which first brought us 
to repentance. And that which brought us to Him is 
brought again and again to our minds; as we partake 
of the Supper of the Lord, the same emotions are 
stirred within our hearts, which consecrate us anew 
to Him. 

There are four positions which are clear as we con- 
clude. 

I. It has been evident from our study that the 
Lord’s Supper is not only a memorial, but that it is 
also sacramental, it actually does something, conveys 
something to our souls. Because he has so splendidly 
summarized the whole matter, I quote Dr. Cave at 
length here. “In addition to being a memorial in re- 
membrance of the death of Christ, it may be inferred 
for the purposes assigned for its institution that the 
Lord’s Supper was to be a sacrament. To its symbolic 
nature it added a sacramental. That such also was its 
purpose might be assumed, both from its divine insti- 
tution and from the position it occupied relative to 
the sacramental sacrifices of Judaism; in fact, it would 


222 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


be next to impossible, on the one hand, to dissociate 
from the fact that our Lord Himself had instituted this 
rite the further fact that it was instituted to work 
some spiritual advantage, and, on the other hand, for 
the Apostles, with all the prepossession of their early 
religious training, not to see in this ordinance a means 
of divine blessing. But the express words of the New 
Testament countenance the sacramental import of the 
Eucharist. ‘Take, eat; this is my body,’ “Drink ye all 
of it, this blood shed for the remission of sins,’—these 
very words imply a-sacramental significance. “Eat this 
body’ is the command, not ‘Eat this bread’ ; ‘Drink this 
blood’ was said, not ‘Drink this wine’: it is no mere 
eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of the 
dead; it is a spiritual participation, renewed at every 
celebration, in the effects wrought by the death of 
Jesus. Besides, how could Paul dwell upon the ability 
to discern the Lord’s body, as a necessary prerequisite 
for communion, unless that prerequisite was to conduct 
into some great privilege? A participation on the part 
of a skeptic might equally serve to keep the name of 
Christ in remembrance; none but a believer could re- 
ceive sacramental advantage.” ** 

2. A second thing we should note in closing is that 
of our attitude as we observe the Supper. Many there 
are who say, “I would come to the Supper, but I am 
a sinner; I have fallen many times during the week; 
Tam not worthy to come.” Much confusion has arisen 
from a misunderstanding of what Paul meant when 
he said, “Wherefore whosoever shall eat the_ bread, 
or drink the cup of the Lord, in an unworthy manner 


14“The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice,” Cave, p. 471. 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 223 


[unworthily, A.V.], shall be guilty of the body and 
the blood of the Lord” (I Cor. 11:27). It is the 
manner of our observance which counts. The Corin- 
thians had made of the Lord’s Supper a drunken feast. 
They had actually become intoxicated at His table. It 
is this that Paul so fiercely condemns. If the observ- 
ance were conditioned upon our being worthy, there is 
not one who would partake, for none of us are worthy. 
I thank God every time I come to the feast of love 
that my approach is not conditioned upon my worthi- 
ness. The very fact that we are unworthy and need 
cleansing is the reason for our coming. If the Sup- 
per is sacramental, if it is a channel or medium through 
which the Father works our advantage in the remis- 
sion of our sins as sinning Christians, then, surely, the 
very fact of our unworthiness is the reason for our 
coming. If, when we come, we do not discern the 
body, if we think not of it all in the sense in which 
it was given us and in its real significance, if we are 
in a light-hearted attitude, then we are observing it in 
an unworthy manner. If we come laughing and think- 
ing of everything else but that of which we should 
think, then we come under the condemnation of the 
Apostle when he tells of the unworthy manner of its 
observance. 

3. The time of our observance of the Supper be- 
comes important also. It should be enough for us 
to know that the Apostles, guided in their actions by 
the Holy Spirit, came together on the Lord’s Day, 
to remember Him in His appointed ordinance. We 
need the stirring of heart and conscience which the 
Lord’s Supper gives us. To the objection that a fre- 


224 STUDIES IN FORGIVENESS OF SINS 


quent observance of the feast tends to lessen its sacred- 
ness, it is only necessary to reply that this can never 
be true to any one who has ever really understood just 
what the Supper means. When we comprehend it in 
its sacramental significance, it can never lose its sacred 
power in our lives. In fact, the very opposite is true 
if there is anything at all in the lengthy argument in 
which we have just indulged. If this whole concep- 
tion has real basis, there is but one time to observe 
it if we would keep its New Testament meaning in 
our souls,—the first day of the week, as the Apostles 
so nobly set us the example. 

4. Finally, a word about those who have the right 
to partake. JI have searched the Scriptures from be- 
ginning to end, and I have failed to find a single 
word about open communion. The term simply does 
not occur in the New Testament. I have hunted just 
as diligently for the Scripture defending close com- 
munion. We will avoid many entanglements if we 
will use Scriptural terms for Scriptural ideas. The 
Lord’s Supper is universally taught as instituted for 
His disciples. If a man believes in Christ as Lord, 
and follows Him as Prophet, he has the right to come 
to the table and commune with his Master. The 
Church will occupy an unshakable position if she will 
hold to this fact. It is the Lord’s table, for the Lord’s 
people, and we have the responsibility only to see that 
on the Lord’s Day it is spread. Our responsibility 
ends there. If I say to a man, “You cannot come; I 
will not allow you, for you are not worthy,’ I am 
examining him, and Paul says that each man is to 
examine himself and so is he to eat. Let us continue 
to keep the feast in love until He comes. 


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